//.  S./cto 

^W**     %% 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


S7^//.. 


BL    200    .F75    1900 

Fraser,  Alexander  Campbell, 

1819-1914. 
Philosophy  of  theism 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM 


THE    GIFFORD    LECTURES 

DELIVERED     BEFORE    THE     UNIVERSITY 
OF    EDINBURGH    IN    1894-96 


ALEXANDER   CAMPBELL   ERASER,   LL.D. 

HON.    D.C.L.    OXFORD 

EMERITUS  PROFESSOR  OP  LOGIC  AND  METAPHYSICS 
IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  EDINBURGH 


SECOND    EDITION,    AMENDED 


N E  W     YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S     SONS 

153-157    FIFTH    AVENUE 
1900 


PEEFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 


Foe  this  edition  the  '  Philosophy  of  Theism '  has  been  recast, 
and  to  a  great  extent  rewritten.  It  has  also  been  condensed,' 
in  the  preface  and  throughout  the  lectures,  partly  by  being- 
purged  of  redundancies  which  are  perhaps  pardonable  in 
oral  communication  of  ideas,  but  are  less  suited  for  thought- 
ful readers;  and  it  now  appears  in  one  volume  instead  of 
two.  The  book  has  been  further  modified  by  occasional  in- 
troduction of  new  matter,  intended  to  present  its  central 
principle  in  fuller  light.  The  whole  has  been  arranged  in 
Three  Parts,  preceded  by  two  preliminary  lectures  in°which 
an  expanded  Natural  Theology  is  defined,  and  articulated  in 
its  three  logically  indemonstrable  data.  A  Eetrospect  of  the 
central  course  of  thought  follows  the  last  Part. 

It  is  hoped  that  these  changes  may  make  the  book  less 
unworthy  of  the  indulgent  reception  and  sympathetic 
criticism  with  which  the  first  edition  has  been  signally 
favoured  abroad,  in  America  and  in  Australia,  not  less  than 
in  this  country.  In  its  new  form  it  may  also  be  more 
adapted  to  assist  reflection  on  the  fundamental  questions  of 
human  life,  in  those  educational  institutions  into  which  it 
has  been  received. 

The  five  lectures  in  the  First  Part  deal  with  three  forms 
of  speculation,  each  of  which  would  reduce  the  universe  of 


VI  PREFACE    TO    SECOND    EDITION. 

reality  to  One  Substance  or  Power ;  and  the  lectures  repre- 
sent total  Scepticism  as  the  reductio  ad  absurdum,  alike  of 
Universal  Materialism,  Panegoism,  and  Pantheism,  when 
those  Monist  speculations  are  pressed  intrepidly  into  their 
issues.     This  Part  is  chiefly  critical  and  negative. 

In  the  Second  or  Constructive  Part,  the  theistic  con- 
ception of  the  three  data  is  unfolded,  not  as  a  direct  con- 
sequence of  deductive  or  inductive  proof,  but  as  founded  on 
our  spontaneous  moral  faith  in  Omnipotent  Goodness  at  the 
heart  of  the  Whole,  taken  as  an  inevitable  (conscious  or 
unconscious)  presupposition  in  all  human  experience — the 
reconciling  principle  in  our  intercourse,  scientific  or  moral, 
with  the  Power  that  is  universally  at  work.  God  is  pre- 
supposed, and  in  a  measure  revealed,  in  the  presuppositions 
of  universal  order  and  of  universal  adaptation;  and  is 
further  revealed  in  the  often  dormant,  but  indispensable, 
moral  and  spiritual  implicates  of  human  experience,  which 
need  to  be  awakened  into  conscious  and  practical  life  by 
external  events  and  institutions.  The  reality  of  human 
experience  is  found  to  involve  the  reality  of  omnipotent, 
omniscient,  omnipresent  moral  Providence,  to  which  the 
emotion  and  will  that  go  to  constitute  our  final  Faith 
respond,  so  making  conscious  or  unconscious  Eeligion  the 
chief  factor  in  the  history  of  mankind.  This  Part  in  a 
degree  unfolds  the  metaphysical  rationale  of  theistic  faith. 

The  Third  Part  comprehends  five  lectures,  concerned  with 
the  Great  Enigma  of  Evil,  presented  at  least  on  our  planet, 
which  seems  to  contradict  the  fundamental  moral  faith, 
and,  by  disturbing  the  religious  or  optimist  conception  of 
existence,  leads  to  pessimist  scepticism.  The  impossibility 
of  an  unomniscient  intelligence  demonstrating  the  supposed 
contradiction,  and  thus  transforming  our  universe  into  an 
untrustworthy  universe,  with  which  one  can  have  no  inter- 
course, is  the  attitude  primarily  assumed  towards  this 
Enigma.      But    further    considerations    are    proposed,    by 


PREFACE    TO    SECOND    EDITION.  Vll 

which  the  difficulty  seems  to  be  mitigated  even  to  human 
apprehension,  pointing  to  modes  of  escape  from  the  dismal 
alternative  of  a  scepticism  which  would  involve  Science  and 
Goodness  in  a  common  ruin.  In  particular,  there  is  the 
fact  that  the  universe,  or  at  least  this  planet,  seems  to  be 
adapted  to  the  progressive  improvement  of  persons  who 
have  made  themselves  bad,  suggesting  that  a  slow  personal 
struggle  towards  the  Ideal,  rather  than  original  and  con- 
stant perfection  of  persons,  may  be  implied  in  finite  per- 
sonal agency.  There  is  also  the  possibility  of  spiritual 
advance  through  what  may  appear  to  be  interference  by 
Omnipotent  Goodness  with  the  divine  natural  order,  for 
the  restoration  to  goodness  of  persons  who  have  made 
themselves  bad,  but  which  may  really  be  normal  operation 
of  the  Universal  Power,  according  to  incompletely  compre- 
hended Order.  And,  lastly,  there  is  the  room  afforded  for 
final  adjustment,  and  for  the  satisfaction  of  Omnipotent 
Love,  that  is  opened  through  the  mystery  of  man's  physical 
disappearance  by  death  in  the  divinely  constituted  universe, 
and  the  consequent  ultimate  venture  of  theistic  faith  or  ex- 
pectation. These  are  examples  of  mitigations  of  the  Great 
Enigma  that  is  presented  on  this  planet, — an  enigma  which, 
if  demonstrably  inconsistent  with  Infinite  Goodness  or  Love, 
would  paralyse  science,  and  moral  development  of  the  Ideal 
Man  in  the  individual. 

The  philosophy  initiated  in  these  lectures  may  perhaps 
be  called  either  Humanised  Idealism  or  Spiritualised  Natur- 
alism. It  seems  to  be  the  reasonable  attitude  towards  his 
own  life  and  the  universe  for  a  person  like  man,  who  is  con- 
fined by  his  small  share  of  experience  to  a  knowledge  which 
— real  as  far  as  it  goes — is  intermediate  between  Unconscious 
Nescience  and  Divine  Omniscience.  It  is  for  philosophers 
or  theologians,  in  the  gradual  progress  of  philosophy  or 
theology,  to  show  how  far,  and  under  what  articulate  con- 
ceptions, even  in  man's  intermediate  position,  his  indispens- 


Vlll  PREFACE    TO    SECOND    EDITION. 

able  final  credenda  may  become  for  him  intelligenda.  And, 
as  with  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Origen  and  Aquinas,  Berkeley 
and  emphatically  Hegel,  philosophy  is  found,  by  different 
routes,  to  culminate  in  theology,  or  religion  in  its  intel- 
lectual expression.  If  the  universe,  as  realised  in  human 
experience,  is  religious  in  its  final  conception,  philosophy  and 
theology  at  last  unite  intellectually. 

"  Natural  Theology,"  thus  philosophically  expanded,  must 
be  distinguished  from  the  natural  theology  which  has  often 
borne  the  name.  About  sixty  years  ago,  with  the  latter 
in  view,  Lord  Macaulay  wrote  thus :  "  As  respects  natural 
religion,  it  is  not  easy  to  say  that  a  philosopher  at  the  pre- 
sent day  is  more  favourably  situated  than  Thales  or  Simon- 
ides.  He  has  before  him  just  the  same  evidences  of 
design  in  the  structure  of  the  universe  that  the  early 
Greeks  had.  The  discoveries  of  modern  astronomers  and 
anatomists  have  added  nothing  to  the  force  of  that  argument 
which  a  reflecting  man  finds  in  every  beast,  bird,  insect,  fish, 
leaf,  flower,  or  shell.  All  the  great  enigmas  which  perplex 
the  natural  theologian  are  the  same  in  all  ages.  The  ingen- 
uity of  a  people  emerging  from  barbarism  is  sufficient  to 
propound  these  enigmas.  The  genius  of  Locke  or  Clarke 
is  quite  unable  to  solve  them.  The  Book  of  Job  shows 
that,  long  before  letters  and  arts  were  known  to  Ionia,  these 
vexing  questions  were  debated  with  no  common  skill  and 
eloquence  under  the  tents  of  the  Idumean  Imirs ;  nor  has 
human  reason  in  the  course  of  three  thousand  years  dis- 
covered any  satisfactory  solution  of  the  riddles  which  per- 
plexed Eliphaz  and  Zophar.  Natural  theology  is  not  a 
progressive  science.  .  .  .  But  neither  is  revealed  religion 
of  the  nature  of  a  progressive  science.  All  divine  truth  is, 
according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Protestant  Churches,  re- 
corded in  certain  books;  nor  can  all  the  discoveries  of  all 
the  philosophers  in  the  world  add  a  single  verse  to  any 
of  these  books.     It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  in  divinity  there 


PREFACE    TO    SECOND    EDITION.  IX 

cannot  be  a  progress  analogous  to  that  which  is  constantly 
taking  place  in  pharmacy,  geology,  and  navigation.  A 
Christian  of  the  fifth  century  with  a  Bible  in  his  hand  is 
neither  better  nor  worse  situated  than  a  Christian  of  the 
nineteenth  century  with  a  Bible — candour  and  natural  acute- 
ness  being  supposed  equal.  It  matters  not  at  all  that  the 
compass,  printing,  gunpowder,  steam,  gas,  vaccination,  and 
a  thousand  other  discoveries  and  inventions,  which  were 
unknown  in  the  fifth  century,  are  familiar  in  the  nineteenth. 
None  of  these  discoveries  and  inventions  has  the  smallest 
bearing  on  the  question,  whether  man  is  justified  by  faith 
alone,  or  whether  the  invocation  of  saints  is  an  orthodox 
practice.  It  seems  that  we  have  no  security  for  the  future 
against  the  prevalence  of  any  theological  error  that  has  ever 
prevailed  in  times  past." 

The  reader  will  consider  how  far  the  philosophy  or  theo- 
logy  to   which   this   book    is    an  introduction  is   consistent 
with    this   discouraging   view,    or   with    the    unconciliatory 
dualism    which    separates    "natural"    from  "revealed"  re- 
ligion, according  to  the  assumption  of  Lord  Macaulay.     He 
will  judge  whether  the    elimination  (on  account  of  man's 
intermediate   position)   of   enigmas    which    have    perplexed 
past  ages,  and  which  still  perplex,  may  not  open  the  way 
to  a  sane  progressive  exercise  of  human  reason,  rooted  in 
theistic  faith  with   all   that   theistic  faith  implies,   in  dis- 
posing of  the  final  questions   which  man  requires  to  deal 
with  somehow.     Religion  on  its  intellectual  side   is  surely 
more  advanced  now  than  it  was  among  the  early  Hebrews 
or  in  Homer.     Fresh  reflection  by  successive  generations  of 
thinkers  upon  the  inevitable  credenda,  in  order  to  convert 
them  more   fully  or  philosophically  into  intclligenda,  com- 
bined with  advancing  interpretation   of  the  divine  revela- 
tions given  in  external   nature,  and  in   the  inspired  spirit 
latent  in  man,  seems  to  afford  ample  scope  for  progress  in 
that  theology  which,  in  the  deepest  meaning  of  nature,  is 


X  PREFACE    TO    SECOND    EDITION. 

the  most  natural  of  all.  The  eternal  gospel  of  Omnipotent 
Goodness,  latent  in  humanity  from  the  beginning,  is  un- 
folded in  the  divine  human  nature  of  the  Ideal  Man,  and 
is  gradually  unfolding  in  human  life  and  history.  And  if 
faith  in  Omnipotent  Goodness,  with  all  that  this  involves, 
is  the  root  and  spring  of  human  experience  and  science, 
no  changes  in  that  experience,  no  discoveries  in  science, 
no  historical  criticism,  no  future  events  in  history,  neither 
things  present  nor  things  to  come,  can  ever  show  the 
unreasonableness  of  this  final  faith,  or  deprive  the  human 
race  of  divine  consolation  and  healing  power. 

Gorton,  Hawthornden,  Mid-Lothian, 
February  1899. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION. 


Two  subjects  above  all  others  have  a  universal  interest. 
One  of  them  always  concerns  all  beings,  but  especially 
all  persons,  in  all  worlds.  The  other  is  of  human  concern 
only.  The  former  relates  to  the  moral  meaning  of  the 
Universe,  in  which  each  person  has  to  play  his  part,  and 
its  final  moral  trustworthiness.  It  has  to  do  with  the 
character  of  the  Universal  power,  in  continuous  intercourse 
with  which  each  person  lives,  in  and  through  his  ethical 
personality  and  his  environment,  without  his  own  leave 
too,  by  the  bare  fact  of  existing  under  moral  conditions. 
The  other  subject  is  the  alternative  of  evanescence  or  per- 
manence after  Death,  as  applicable  to  human  persons.  Do 
they  all  finally  lose  their  conscious  personality  in  physical 
death ;  or  do  they  continue  in  self-conscious  life,  notwith- 
standing the  dissolution  of  the  body — it  may  be  with  added 
intellectual  and  spiritual  power,  as  a  consequence  of  relief 
from  its  limiting  conditions — after  the  body  has  served  the 
end  of  permanently  individualising  the  human  spirit  ? 

Is  our  environment  essentially  physical  and  non-moral,  or 
is  it  ultimately  divine  ?  Is  his  visible  body  the  measure 
of  the  continuance  of  each  man's  self-conscious  personal- 
ity ?  These  two  correlated  questions  underlie  human  life. 
Neither  of  them,  I  think,  can  be  got  rid  of  on  the  ground 


Xll  PREFACE    TO    FIRST    EDITION. 

that  it  is  interesting  only  speculatively,  or  that  it  is  prac- 
tically indeterminable. 

Natural  Theology,  in  the  philosophical  meaning  of  the 
term,  is  face  to  face  with  both  these  questions.  For  the 
word  "  natural,"  in  the  ancient  and  large  meaning  of  Nature, 
is  applied  not  only  to  the  world  of  material  things  and  their 
metamorphoses,  but  also  to  the  world  of  persons  or  moral 
agents,  and  sometimes  even  to  the  sum  of  real  existence, 
temporal  and  timeless,  finite  and  divine.  To  follow  "  nature  " 
is  accordingly  to  follow  reason — including  moral  reason. 
The  philosopher  has  to  consider  whether  men  are  doing  this 
when  they  are  proceeding  upon  the  religious  conception  of 
the  universe  as  its  final  conception ;  whether  they  are  re- 
quired by  reason  to  accept  a  wholly  physical  or  non-moral 
conception  as  the  highest  attainable ;  or  whether  they  need 
to  withdraw  from  every  endeavour  to  interpret  themselves 
and  their  surroundings,  and  must  subside  in  speechless, 
motionless,  agnostic  despair.  It  is  in  a  large  meaning  of 
Nature  that  I  take  the  term  Natural  Theology  to  com- 
prehend rational  treatment  of  the  universally  interesting 
problem  found  at  the  root  of  human  life.  Deliberate 
study  of  it  belongs  to  liberal  education,  especially  in  the 
condition  in  which  we  find  modern  thought.  It  should 
be  the  outcome  of  this  remarkable  Scottish  Foundation 
by  Lord  Gifford,  which  admits  of  so  many  beneficial 
adaptations. 

In  the  following  lectures  the  critical  reader  cannot  fail 
to  find  conclusions  sustained  by  reasonings  that  are  not 
fully  unfolded,  and  important  questions  either  passed  over 
or  subjected  to  superficial  treatment.  It  is  hoped,  however, 
that  the  order  of  thought  which  I  have  tried  to  follow 
may  lead  persons  disposed  to  reflect  on  a  path  where 
more  abundant  fruit  may  be  gathered  by  their  own  hands. 
I  venture  to  ask  that  the  work  may  be  looked  at  in  its 


PREFACE    TO    FIRST    EDITION.  Xlll 

reasoned  unity,  and  not  as  a  series  of  isolated  discussions  ; 
unbiassed,  I  hope,  in  its  intention,  by  any  interest  that  is 
at  variance  with  what  is  true.  The  short  time  for  prepara- 
tion that  could  be  given  by  the  academical  authorities  who 
honoured  me  by  this  appointment  has  not  permitted  me  to 
explore  as  I  could  have  wished  the  vast  and  ever-increasing 
relative  literature.  To  escape  the  confusion  of  mind  apt  to 
be  produced,  in  these  circumstances,  by  much  reading,  I  have 
confined  myself  to  a  sincere  exposition  of  thoughts  gradu- 
ally reached  in  a  life  devoted  to  kindred  pursuits.  Some  of 
them  have  already  found  expression,  in  a  less  explicit  form, 
chiefly  in  notes  and  dissertations  included  in  my  editions 
of  the  works  of  Berkeley  and  of  Locke  and  biographies  of 
those  philosophers,  as  well  as  in  lectures  to  students  in 
the  university  of  Edinburgh. 

The  religious  conception  of  the  universe  is  adopted  in 
these  lectures  as  its  true  conception,  on  the  ground  that, 
unless  the  Power  universally  at  work  is  Omnipotent  Good- 
ness, there  can  be  no  valid  intercourse  of  Man  with  Nature, 
which  instead  has  to  be  avoided,  as  the  action  and  revela- 
tion of  a  suspected  Power :  the  perfect  reliability  of  the 
Universal  Power  is  presupposed  in  the  reliability  of  ex- 
perience. The  history  of  man  is  a  record  of  collision 
between  sceptical  distrust  of  his  nature  and  environment, 
on  the  one  side,  and  moral  faith  and  hope  in  an  environ- 
ment that  is  trusted  in  as  ultimately  Divine,  on  the  other. 
It  presents  a  competition  between  final  Doubt  and  final 
Faith  for  the  deepest  place.  In  the  earlier  lectures  the  voice 
of  the  Sceptic  is  prominent.  Afterwards  Faith  makes  itself 
heard,  as  that  which  must  at  last  underlie  the  utmost  pos- 
sible doubt,  because  the  indispensable  condition  of  any  scien- 
tific or  moral  intercourse  with  the  ever-changing  universe 
of  external  nature  and  man.  But  sceptical  criticism  is  still 
valuable  for  unfolding  the  rationale  of  final  faith  in  the  per- 
fect goodness  of  the  Power  that  is  universally  at  work. 


xiv  PREFACE    TO    FIRST    EDITION. 

That  the  method  I  have  adopted  may  be  called  anthropo- 
morphic or  anthropocentric  is  not,  I  think,  a  reasonable 
objection  to  it,  if  all  man's  intercourse  with  reality  must  be 
under  human  conditions,  and  is  possible  so  far  only  as  the 
universe  is  adaptable  by  man  ; — not  in  humanly  inaccessible 
Omniscience.  The  ultimate  relations  of  men,  in  the  fulness 
of  their  spiritual  being,  to  the  realities  amongst  which  they 
were,  without  their  own  will,  introduced  at  birth  under  in- 
evitable intellectual  and  moral  postulates — not  Omniscience 
as  at  the  divine  centre — this  surely  is  the  only  philosophy 
or  theology  that  man  is  able  to  entertain,  or  that  is  needed 
to  satisfy  his  necessities.  This  is  the  realities  in  their 
relation  to  man,  when  man  is  recognised  as  more  than  a 
sentient  automaton,  yet  as  less  than  omniscient.  The  diffi- 
culties found  in  ultimate  moral  faith  and  hope  arise  largely 
from  oversight  of  what  humanly  limited  knowledge  must 
be  in  the  end. 

That  a  mixture  of  the  abstract  Spinozism  which  ignores 
change,  and  philosophises  sub  specie  eternitatis,  with  the  em- 
pirical agnosticism  of  David  Hume,  which  reduces  all  realities 
to  inexplicable  successive  appearances,  is  in  this  century 
working  in  the  main  current  of  thought  in  Europe  and 
America,  in  sympathy  with  analogous  ideas  in  India  and  the 
East,  is  a  consideration  which  was  present  to  my  mind. 
Spinoza  and  Hume  were  seldom  forgotten.  Nor  was  their 
service  to  truth  overlooked,  in  the  way  of  deepening  and 
vivifying  the  timid  conventionalism  which  ecclesiastical 
theology  sometimes  exemplifies. 

It  is  difficult  to  discuss  the  questions  of  man  and  the 
universe  in  their  final  relations  without  making  a  large 
and  unacceptable  demand  upon  the  reflective  power  of  the 
reader — at  any  rate,  a  greater  demand  than  is  made  by 
a  Society  novel.  Yet  I  am  well  aware  that  this  book  falls 
far  short  of  what  might  be  reached  in  this  respect  by  a 
more  powerful  philosophical  imagination  and  a  more  lucid 


PREFACE    TO    FIRST    EDITION.  XV 

and  penetrating  intelligence,  directed  by  artistic  literary 
faculty.  The  defect  has  been  largely  supplied  since.  Eng- 
lish literature  has  been  enriched  by  a  treatise  on  '  The 
Foundations  of  Belief '  by  Mr  Balfour,  in  which  the  reader 
finds  the  basis  of  theology  investigated  in  a  manner  that 
rivals  Berkeley  or  Hume  in  luminous  expression  of  subtle 
thought.  Without  venturing  to  offer  observations  upon  an 
argument  conducted  with  a  somewhat  different  design,  I  may 
express  the  satisfaction  with  which  I  have  found  a  sanction 
in  Mr  Balfour's  reasonings  for  the  equal  final  insolubility  of 
physical  science  and  theology  ;  and  for  their  common  founda- 
tion in  what  might  perhaps  be  called  the  "authority"  of 
the  collective  moral  reason  of  mankind,  as  distinguished  from 
direct  logical  proof.  Two  other  eminent  men  of  affairs  have 
also  added  lately  to  the  debt  which  religious  thought  owes  to 
illustrious  statesmen,  since  Bacon  and  Leibniz  set  the  example. 
The  world  may  be  grateful  to  Mr  Gladstone  for  the  critical 
expositions  in  which  he  has  powerfully  recommended  and 
reintroduced  the  chief  English  work  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury in  the  philosophy  of  religion,  thus  associating  his  name 
with  that  of  Bishop  Butler.  And  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  with 
characteristic  argumentative  strength  and  eloquence,  has 
explained  the  teleological  conception  of  the  universe  on 
scientific  grounds  in  his  'Philosophy  of  Belief.'  That  in 
the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  three  of  the 
most  eminent  leaders  in  public  affairs  should  have  thus 
placed  themselves  on  the  side  of  final  Faith  in  the 
struggle  with  final  Doubt,  is  no  insignificant  sign  of  the 
time  in  this  country  and  in  the  world. 

University  of  Edinburgh, 
September  1896. 


CONTENTS. 


PRELIMINARY. 

LECT. 

I.    THE   UNIVERSAL   PROBLEM 
II.    THREE    PRIMARY   DATA  '.    EGO,   MATTER,   AND    GOD 


PAGE 

3 

24 


FIRST    PART. 
UNTHEISTIC   SPECULATION   AND    FINAL   SCEPTICISM. 

I.    UNIVERSAL   MATERIALISM  .  .  .  .  .43 

II.    PANEGOISM        .......  62 

III.  PANTHEISM        .......  76 

IV.  PANTHEISTIC    UNITY   AND    NECESSITY  :    SPINOZA             .                 .  89 
V.    FINAL   SCEPTICISM  :    DAVID    HUME         ....  104 


SECOND    PART. 
FINAL   REASON   IN   THEISTIC    FAITH. 


I.    GOD   LATENT   IN    NATURE 
II.    IDEAL  MAN   AN    IMAGE   OF   GOD 
III.    WHAT   IS   GOD  ? 


123 

139 
154 


XV111 


CONTENTS. 


IV.    PERFECT   GOODNESS   PERSONIFIED 
V.    OMNIPOTENT   GOODNESS 
VI.    OMNIPRESENT   DIVINE   ADAPTATION     . 
VII.    PHILOSOPHICAL    OR   THEOLOGICAL   OMNISCIENCE 
VIII.    FINAL   FAITH    ..... 


166 
185 

200 
216 
232 


THIRD    PART. 

THE   GREAT   ENIGMA   OF   THEISTIC    FAITH. 

I.    EVIL   ON   THIS    PLANET  .....  247 

II.   THEISTIC   OPTIMISM       ......  262 

III.  HUMAN   PROGRESS         ......  277 

IV.  MIRACULOUS   INTERFERENCE.       WHAT    IS   A   MIRACLE  ?             .  291 
V.    THE   FINAL   VENTURE    OF   THEISTIC    FAITH       .                 .                 .  306 


A   RETROSPECT 


325 


INDEX  . 


333 


PRELIMINARY 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


LECTUEE    I. 

THE   UNIVERSAL   PROBLEM. 

My  first  words  must  give  expression  to  the  emotion  Personal, 
which  I  feel  on  finding  myself  once  more  admitted  to 
speak  officially  within  the  walls  of  this  ancient  uni- 
versity, with  which,  as  student,  graduate,  and  professor, 
I  have  been  connected  for  sixty  years.  For  it  is  sixty 
years  in  this  November  since  I  first  cast  eyes  of  wonder 
on  the  academic  walls  which  now  carry  so  many  memo- 
ries in  my  mind,  and  which  to-day  are  associated  with 
an  extraordinary  responsibility.  In  the  evening  of  life, 
in  reluctant  response  to  the  unexpected  invitation  of  the 
patrons  of  the  Gifford  Trust,  I  find  myself,  in  the  presence 
of  my  countrymen,  called  to  say  honestly  the  best  that 
may  be  in  me  concerning  the  supreme  problem  of  human 
life,  our  response  to  which  at  last  determines  the  answers 
to  all  questions  which  can  engage  the  mind  of  man.  No 
words  that  I  can  find  are  sufficient  to  represent  my  sense 
of  the  honour  thus  conferred,  or  the  responsibility  thus 
imposed,  upon  one  who  believed  that  he  had  bid  a  final 
farewell  to  appearances  in  public  of  this  sort,  in  order  to 
wind  up  his  account  with  this  mysterious  life  of  sense. 

It  is  an  appalling  problem  which  confronts  me,  and  in- 


4  PHILOSOPHY    OF   THEISM. 

The  final  deed  confronts  us  all,  for  all  must  practically  dispose  of  it 
human  jn  oue  way  or  another ;  and  I  am  now  required  to  handle 
and  th?  it  intellectually.  One  may  not  be  ready  to  say  with  Pliny, 
attitude  of  t}iat  a^  religi0ns  are  the  offspring  of  human  weakness  and 
n  es.  fear;  and  that  what  God  is,  if  indeed  God  be  anything 
distinct  from  the  world  in  which  we  find  ourselves,  it  is 
beyond  man's  understanding  to  know.  Yet  even  the 
boldest  thinker,  when  confronted  by  the  ultimate  prob- 
lem of  existence,  may  desire  to  imitate  the  philosophic 
caution  of  Simonides,  when  he  was  asked,  What  God 
was  ?  —  in  first  demanding  a  day  to  think  about  the 
answer,  then  two  clays  more,  and  after  that  continuously 
doubling  the  required  time,  when  the  time  already  granted 
had  come  to  an  end ;  but  without  ever  finding  that  he  was 
able  to  produce  the  required  answer; — rather  becoming 
more  apt  to  suspect  that  the  answer  carried  him  beyond 
the  range  of  human  intelligence.  Often  in  these  last 
months  I  have  wished  that  I  could  indulge  in  this  pru- 
dent procrastination,  taking  not  more  months  only  but 
more  years  to  ponder  this  infinite  problem.  But  after 
the  threescore  years  and  ten,  this  is  a  forbidden  alter- 
native, if  I  am  to  speak  in  this  place  at  all.  I  see  at 
hand 

"  The  shadow  cloak'd  from  head  to  foot, 
Who  keeps  the  keys  of  all  the  creeds." 

Forms  in         Man's  ultimate  question  about  his  life  in  the  universe 
is  at  the  heart  of  Theism.     Philosophy  asks  what  this 


which  the 
problem  of   * 


the  uni-  illimitable  aggregate  of  ever-changing  things  and  persons 
verse  may  reaiiy  means,  if  indeed  it  means  anything.  What  is  the 
pressed.  deepest  and  truest  interpretation  that  can  be  put  by  me 
upon  the  world  in  which  I  found  myself  participating 
when  I  became  percipient,  and  with  which  I  have  been 
in  contact  or  collision  ever  since  I  began  to  live  ?  Ought 
a  benign  meaning  or  a  malign  meaning  to  be  put  upon  it  ? 
This  is,  surely,  the  most  human  question  that  can  be 
raised:  no  man  can  avoid  giving  some  sort  of  response 
to  it  in  the  motives  of  his  life,  if  not  in  philosophic 
thought.  In  what  sort  of  universe — divine,  or  diabolic, 
or  indifferent— and  for  what  purpose,  if  any,  am  I  existing 


THE    UNIVERSAL    PROBLEM.  5 

consciously  ?  What  is  the  deepest  and  truest  meaning  of 
this  ever-changing  universe  in  which  I  am  now  struggling  ? 
What  the  origin  and  the  outcome  of  its  endless  flux  ?  Is 
the  Universal  Power  perfectly  reasonable  and  morally 
trustworthy  ?  or  is  the  whole  morally  chaotic  and  mis- 
leading, with  only  transitory  semblance  of  even  physical 
order  ?  or  must  I  remain  for  ever  ignorant,  and  therefore 
unable  to  adopt  either  of  those  alternatives  ? 

It  is  this  problem  of  the  ultimate  meaning  and  purpose  The  hu- 
of  human  life  in  the  universe,  or  whether  indeed  there  is  }uan  p™1'" 
any  purpose  in  it,  that  I  find  at  the  heart  or  the  subject  universe 
that  has  been  intrusted  to  me,  for  free  but  always  rever-  disturbs 
ential  discussion.     It  is  a  many-sided  subject,  which  each  thought. 
lecturer  is  invited  to  discuss  at  his  own  point  of  view, 
with  the  advantage  to  truth  of  its  being  thus  looked  at 
on  many  sides — one,  too,  that  is  more  than  usually  dis- 
turbing feeling  and  faith,  in  this  outspeaking  era  of  Euro- 
pean and  American  civilisation. 

When  I  was  asked  to  engage  in  this  work,  I  turned  to  Lord  Gif- 
Lorcl  Gifford's  Deed  of  Bequest,  in  the  hope  that  it  might  Auctions 
contain  articulate  directions  with   regard  to  the  object-  for  dealing 
matter  to  be  investigated,   the  method  of  investigation,  Wlth  it 
and  the  chief    end   of   the  proposed  inquiry.      I    found, 
under  each  of  these  three  heads,  particular  instructions, 
but  more  or  less  ambiguous. 

As  regards  the  proposed  matter  of  inquiry,  it  seems  to  It  is  infin- 
concern  an  Object  that  is  absolutely  unique.     It  cannot  ^dBse0ma^ 
be   made  visible   or  tangible ;   nor   is   it   even   finite,   as  absolutely 
objects  studied  in  natural  science  are,  and  as  the  word  j^^tna?" 
object  seems  to  imply.     This  unique  Object,  if  object  it  we  have 
may  be  called,  is  thus  spoken  of  in  the  Deed  of  Foun-  to  inquire 
dation : — "  God,  the  Infinite,  the  All,  the  First  and  Only 
Cause,  the  One  and  the  Sole  Substance,  the  Sole  Being, 
the  Sole  Reality,  and  the  Sole  Existence  "  ; — more  particu- 
larly, "  the  nature  and  attributes  of  God,"  and  "  the  rela- 
tions which  men  and  the  whole  universe  bear  to  God." 
"  Science "  of  this  is  called  "  Natural   Theology  in    the 
widest  sense  of  the  term." 

Next  I  find  something  about  the  method  of  conducting 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  Infin- 
ite Being 
is  to  be 
inquired 
about  in 
a  scien- 
tific spirit. 


With  a 
view  to 
man's  high 
est  well- 
being  and 
upward 
progress. 


this  unique  investigation.  Strict  scientific  method  is  en- 
joined, according  to  the  analogy  of  the  natural  sciences, 
unrestrained  except  by  evidence,  with  consequent  obliga- 
tion to  follow  facts,  in  pursuit  of  whatever  is  found  on 
the  whole  to  be  reasonable.  As  thus :  "  I  wish  the  lec- 
turers to  treat  their  subject  as  a  strictly  natural  science, 
the  greatest  of  all  possible  sciences,  in  one  sense  the  only 
science— that  of  Infinite  Being  ;  without  reference  to,  or 
reliance  upon,  any  supposed  special,  exceptional,  or  so- 
called  miraculous  revelation.  I  wish  it  to  be  considered 
as  astronomy  or  chemistry  is.  .  .  .  The  lecturers  shall  be 
under  no  restraint  whatever  in  their  treatment  of  their 
theme.  For  example,  they  may  freely  discuss  (and  it 
may  be  well  to  do  so)  all  questions  about  man's  con- 
ceptions of  God  or  the  Infinite ;  their  origin,  nature,  and 
truth;  whether  man  can  have  any  such  conceptions; 
whether  God  is  under  any  or  what  limitations;  and  so 
on_as  I  am  persuaded  that  nothing  but  good  can  result 
from  free  discussion.  .  .  .  The  lecturers  appointed  shall 
accordingly  be  subjected  to  no  test  of  any  kind,  and  shall 
not  be  required  to  take  an  oath,  or  to  make  any  promise 
of  any  kind ;  they  may  be  of  any  denomination  whatever, 
or  of  no  denomination  at  all  (and  many  earnest  and  high- 
minded  men  prefer  to  belong  to  no  ecclesiastical  denom- 
ination) ;  they  may  be  of  any  religion  or  way  of  thinking, 
or,  as  it  is  sometimes  said,  they  may  be  of  no  religion ;  or 
they  may  be  called  sceptics,  agnostics,  or  free-thinkers, 
...  it  being  desirable  that  the  subject  be  promoted  and 
illustrated  by  different  minds." 

Finally,  the  code  of  directions  suggests  that  a  broad 
social  purpose  of  utility  is  to  be  kept  in  view  throughout 
the  inquiry.  This  is  indeed  the  chief  end  of  those  lec- 
tureships on  "Natural  Theology  in  the  widest  sense  of 
the  term."  It  is  intellectual  enlargement  for  a  human 
and  practical  purpose.  One  finds  what  follows  :— -"  I 
having  been  for  many  years  deeply  and  firmly  convinced 
that  the  true  knowledge  of  God— that  is,  of  the  Being, 
Nature,  and  Attributes  of  the  Infinite,  of  the  All,  of  the 
First  and  only  Cause,  the  one  only  Substance  and  Being ; 
and   the   true   and    felt   Knowledge   (not   mere   nominal 


THE    UNIVERSAL    PROBLEM.  7 

Knowledge)  of  the  relations  of  Man  and  of  the  Universe 
to  Him  —  being,  I  say,  convinced  that  this  knowledge, 
when  felt  and  acted  on,  is  the  means  of  man's  highest 
wellbeing,  and  the  security  of  his  upward  progress, — I 
have  therefore  resolved  to  institute  and  found,  in  con- 
nection if  possible  with  the  Scottish  universities,  lecture- 
ships for  the  promotion  of  the  study  of  the  said  subjects, 
and  for  the  teaching  and  diffusion  of  sound  views  regard- 
ing them,  among  the  whole  population  of  Scotland."  This 
implies  that  a  man's  final  faith  or  final  doubt  shows  what 
the  man  is,  and  makes  him  what  he  is. 

It  is  with  this  deeply  human  purpose  in  view,  and  in  Let  us 
the  scientific  spirit  which  seeks  for  truth,  truth  only,  *a?f  fact,s 
and  truth  all,  that  we  now  address  ourselves  to  the  ulti-  honestly. 
mate  question  about  the  Universal  Power,  the  answer  to 
which  constitutes  "  Natural  Theology  in  the  widest  sense 
of  the  term."  We  are  in  quest  of  the  wisest  and  truest 
answer,  available  for  a  being  such  as  man  is,  to  this  su- 
preme question — What  is  the  character  of  the  Universal 
Power  with  which  all  experience  brings  me  into  inter- 
course ?  Am  I  obliged  in  reason,  by  the  facts  and  con- 
ditions of  the  case,  to  put  finally  a  religious  interpretation 
upon  the  universe ;  or  do  the  facts  forbid  me  to  recognise 
any  conception  higher  than  the  physical,  called  par  ex- 
cellence the  "scientific"?  Either  way  I  must  follow  as 
facts  and  reason  oblige  me.  "  Things  are  what  they  are," 
as  Bishop  Butler  says,  "  and  the  consequences  of  them 
will  be  what  they  will  be ;  why,  then,  should  we  desire 
to  be  deceived  ? "  Let  us  face  the  facts,  seeking  only 
to  know  what  they  are,  and,  as  far  as  we  can,  what  they 
mean.  I  will  give  the  remainder  of  this  lecture  to  some 
further  consideration  of  the  object  -  matter,  method,  and 
utility  of  Philosophical  Theism,  or  "  Natural  Theology  in 
the  widest  meaning  of  the  term." 

I.  Look  first  at  that  in  man  which  suggests  the  final  Recogni- 
human  problem.     The  marvel  of  his  own  existence,  and  n°n  of.tne 

...        r     .  .  i  •    i      ,         n     t       i  ■  in  ultimate 

of   the   universe  in   which    he    finds   himself,  appears    a  marvel 
marvel  only  to  man  among  known  sentient  beings ;  and  it  of  the 


8  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

universe  is  is  this  with  full  consciousness  only  to  the  few  who  reflect. 
fa§c3iyr"  "  With  the  exception  of  man,"  as  Schopenhauer  says,  "  no 
human.  being  wonders  at  its  own  existence  and  surroundings." 
By  the  brute  destitute  of  self  -  consciousness,  the  world 
and  its  own  life  are  felt,  uninquiringly  felt,  as  a  matter  of 
course.  But  with  man  his  own  life  and  what  it  means 
becomes  a  thought  at  which  even  the  most  degraded  may  be 
moved  to  marvel.  Men  show  themselves  dimly  conscious 
of  this  in  the  rudest  forms  of  religion.  A  sense  of  the  ever- 
abiding  presence  of  the  enigma  of  existence — shown  in 
the  form  of  wonder  as  to  what  we  are,  what  our  surround- 
ings involve,  why  we  are  what  we  are,  why  so  surrounded, 
and  what  we  are  destined  to  become  at  last — is  the  chief 
motive  to  philosophy.  It  is  the  awe  involved  in  the 
vague  sense  of  man's  absolute  dependence  upon  the 
Universal  Power,  amidst  the  Immensities  and  Eternities, 
and  the  sense  of  moral  responsibility  for  the  way  we  con- 
duct our  lives,  that  gives  rise  to  religion. 
A  merely  The  omnipresence  of  Infinite  Beality  gives  their  distinc- 
soiution  of  ^ve  cnaracter  alike  to  philosophy  and  to  religion.  It  is 
the  univer-  by  their  concern  with  Infinite  Beality  that  both  are  dis- 
lemTm-3"  tinguished  from  finite  physical  science.  We  are  accus- 
possibie.  tomed  in  sciences  of  the  material  world  to  a  feeling  of 
satisfaction  when  we  are  able  to  refer  unexpected  events 
to  visible  causes,  on  which  they  are  believed  naturally  to 
depend,  according  to  the  established  natural  order,  and  by 
which  they  are  provisionally  explained.  But  it  is  some- 
thing deeper  than  desire  for  this  provisional  satisfaction 
that  moves  philosophical  curiosity.  For  the  complete  or 
final  meaning  of  the  infinite  universe  of  reality  cannot  be 
discovered  by  referring  it  to  a  natural  cause,  in  the 
way  material  phenomena  are  referred  to  natural  causes. 
Science  of  its  Universal  Power  must  be  therefore  abso- 
lutely unique  science.  The  universe  cannot  be  treated 
as  if  it  were  only  a  finite  term  in  a  natural  succession. 
It  is  not  like  a  visible  event  in  one  of  the  physical  sciences, 
which,  when  a  place  has  been  found  for  it  in  the  order  of 
outward  nature,  ceases  to  perplex.  In  asking  about  the 
Character  of  the  Power  that  accounts  for  the  temporal 
procession,  we  are  not  trying  to  find  a  physical  cause. 


THE    UNIVERSAL    PROBLEM.  9 

Philosophic  wonder  and  religions  reverence  are  states 
of  mind  which  rise  above  physical  science.  To  try  to 
reach  out  beyond  the  natural  evolution  of  the  visible  uni- 
verse, and  yet  to  treat  the  whole  as  only  a  finite  effect  in 
ordinary  causal  succession,  seems  to  imply  an  experience 
of  universes;  but  this  surely  involves  a  contradiction. 
For  the  universe  of  reality  must  be  all  -  comprehensive ; 
yet  it  seems  as  if  I  must  get  outside  of  it,  and  out  of 
myself  too  as  a  part  of  it,  in  order  to  see  its  final 
meaning  and  purpose.  It  is  only  an  infinitesimally  small 
part  of"  what  happens  in  time  that  can  be  presented  in 
each  man's  experience,  or  even  in  the  experience  of  man- 
kind. Omniscience  is  the  only  form  of  science  for  the 
final  reality,  one  is  ready  to  say. 

This  invincible  difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  final  prob-  gavid^ 
lem,  as  a  problem  in  physical  science,  perplexed  David  8u^eestsed 
Hume,  the  most  intrepid  theological  and  philosophical  difficulty 
thinker  that  Scotland  has  produced.  For  it  seems  to  me  ^™ 
that  the  dimension  of  the  problem  of  "  Natural  Theology 
in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term  "  was  realised  by  this  Edin- 
burgh citizen  of  last  century  as  fully  as  by  any  preceding 
modern  thinker,  unless  perhaps  Spinoza.  This  is  how 
David  Hume  makes  Philo  speak,  as  an  interlocutor  in 
"  Dialogues  on  Natural  Religion  " :  "  If  we  see  a  house," 
Philo  argues,  "we  conclude  with  the  greatest  certainty 
that  it  had  an  architect  or  builder ;  because  this  is  pre- 
cisely the  species  of  finite  effect  which  we  have  experi- 
enced to  proceed  from  that  species  of  cause."  Let  me 
interpolate  the  remark  that  even  in  this  conclusion  Philo 
takes  for  granted,  without  scientific  proof,  that  man  does 
know  enough  about  the  universe  in  its  ultimate  principle 
to  be  certain  that  he  is  actually  living  in  a  universe  in 
which  like  sorts  of  natural  effects  must  proceed  from  like 
sorts  of  natural  causes— that  the  procession  of  events 
must  be  always  orderly,  and  therefore  intelligible— that 
the  universe,  in  short,  must  be  physically  trustworthy. 
Waiving  this,  however,  Philo  thus  proceeds,—"  Surely  you 
will  not  affirm  that  the  universe  bears  such  a  resemblance 
to  a  house  that  we  can  with  the  same  certainty  infer  a 
cause  for  it,  or  that  the  analogy  is  here  entire  and  perfect. 


10  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

Can  you  think,  Cleanthes,  that  your  usual  phlegm  and 
philosophy  have  been  preserved  in  so  wide  a  step  as  you 
have  taken,  when  you  have  compared  the  universe  to 
houses,  ships,  furniture,  machines ;  and  from  their  simi- 
larity in  some  circumstances  inferred  a  similarity  in  their 
causes  ?  Thought,  design,  intelligence,  such  as  we  discover 
in  men  and  other  animals,  is  no  more  than  one  of  the 
innumerable  springs  and  principles  in  the  universe,  which 
as  well  as  a  hundred  others,  such  as  heat  and  cold,  attrac- 
tion and  repulsion,  fall  under  daily  observation.  It  is  a 
natural  cause  by  which  some  particular  parts  of  nature, 
we  find,  produce  alterations  on  other  parts.  But  can  a 
conclusion  with  any  propriety  be  transferred  from  [finite] 
parts  to  the  [infinite]  whole  ?  Does  not  the  great  [infinite] 
disproportion  bar  all  comparison  or  inference  ?  .  .  .  But, 
allowing  that  we  are  to  take  the  operations  of  one  part 
of  nature  upon  another  part,  for  the  foundation  of  our 
judgment  concerning  the  origin  of  the  whole  (which  never 
can  be  admitted),  yet  why  select  so  minute,  so  weak,  so 
bounded  a  cause  or  principle  as  the  reason  and  design 
of  animals  living  upon  this  planet  is  found  to  be  ?  What 
peculiar  privilege  has  this  little  agitation  of  the  brain 
which  we  call  thought  that  we  must  thus  make  it  the 
model  of  the  whole  universe  ?  So  far  from  admitting 
that  the  operations  of  a  part  can  afford  us  any  just  con- 
clusion concerning  the  [infinite]  whole,  I  will  not  allow 
any  one  part  to  form  a  rule  for  another  part,  if  the  latter 
be  very  remote  from  the  former.  .  .  .  And  if  thought,  as 
we  may  well  suppose,  be  confined  merely  to  this  narrow 
corner,  and  has  even  here  so  limited  a  sphere  of  action, 
with  what  propriety  can  we  assign  it  for  the  original 
cause  of  all  things  ?  The  narrow  views  of  a  peasant,  who 
makes  his  domestic  economy  the  rule  for  the  government 
of  kingdoms,  is  in  comparison  a  pardonable  sophism.  But 
were  we  ever  so  much  assured  that  a  thought  or  reason, 
resembling  the  human,  were  to  be  found  throughout  the 
whole  universe,  and  were  its  activity  elsewhere  vastly 
greater  than  it  appears  on  this  globe ;  yet  I  cannot  see 
why  the  operations  of  a  world  now  constituted,  arranged, 
adjusted,  can,  with  any  propriety,  be  extended  to  a  world 


THE  UNIVERSAL  PROBLEM.  11 

which  was  in  its  embryo  state,  and  only  advancing  towards 
that  constitution  and  arrangement.  Nature,  we  find,  from 
our  limited  experience,  possesses  an  infinite  number  of 
springs  and  principles  which  incessantly  discover  them- 
selves on  every  change  in  her  position  and  situation. 
And  what  new  and  unknown  principles  would  actuate 
her  in  so  new  and  unknown  a  situation  as  that  of  the 
formation  of  a  Universe,  we  cannot,  without  the  utmost 
temerity,  pretend  to  determine."     So  far  David  Hume. 

Notwithstanding  this  obstacle  to  our  comprehension  of  The  pres- 
the  Character  of  the  Universal  Power,  there  are  facts  in  ^ea°fd 
experience   that   intensify   the   longing  for  some  idea  of  of  death  in 
what  life  in  this  evolving  world  in  which  we  find  our-  JJ^nSft? 
selves  practically  means  for  us,  and  what  it  is  finally  to  human  in- 
issue   in.      What    probably    quickens    this    desire,    and  \^e^^ 
rouses  men  out  of  the  sensuous  indifference  produced  by  problem. 
the  mere  custom  of  living,  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  suffer- 
ing and  sin  that  seem  to  be  chaotically  mixed  up  with 
life  on  this  planet ;  and,  in  the  next  place,  the  vanity  that 
appears  to  be  stamped  upon  each  person's  share  in   the 
whole  transaction,  through  the  fact  that  he  is  confronted 
by  his  approaching  death.     Evil  and  death  are  chief  diffi- 
culties, moreover,  in  the  way  of  a  solution.     If  this  em- 
bodied life  of  ours — in  which,  without  being  able  to  avoid 
it,  we  become  individually,  for  a  time  at  least,  part  of 
the  universe — if  this  life  were  endless,  and  unmixed  with 
sin  and  pain,  the  interest  man  could  take  in  the  ultimate 
problem  would  be  speculative.     The  great  enigma  of  Evil 
would  not  then   disturb   the   divine  harmony.      Neither 
should  we   be   confronted   by   the   mystery   of   our   own 
prospective  disappearance  from  the  scene — 

"  To  die — to  sleep  ; — 
To  sleep  !  perchance  to  dream  :  ay,  there's  the  rub  ; 
For  in  that  sleep  of  death  what  dreams  may  come, 
When  we  have  shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil, 
Must  give  us  pause." 

Philosophy  has  been  described  as  meditation  upon 
death.  It  is  an  expansion  of  what  the  gentle  and  re- 
ligious English  essayist  represented  according  to  popular 


12  PHILOSOPHY   OF   THEISM. 

Themys-  conception  in  the  "Vision  of  Mirza."  But  faith  in  their 
endless  in-  own  immortality  seems  incredible  to  those  who  are  accus- 
dividuai  tomed  to  take  the  postulates  of  modern  materialism 
llfe-  alone   for  regulating   their   final   interpretation   of   man. 

The  world  in  which  we  are  is  found  to  be  in  constant 
change :  all  that  is  individual  seems  naturally  transitory. 
Is  it  not  contrary  to  the  analogies  of  experience  to  sup- 
pose that  T  who  lately  began  to  live  shall  never  cease 
to  live — that  I  shall  never  be  refunded  into  the  uncon- 
scious existence  from  which  I  was  evolved  when  I  was 
born?^  Must  not  all  that  is  generable  be  perishable?  If 
I  am  immortal  must  not  I  have  existed  before  my  birth  ? 
And  if  my  existence  then  noways  concerns  me  now,  as 
little  need  my  existence  after  my  death  concern  me  now. 
Unconsciousness  before  the  natural  birth  of  our  bodies 
suggests  unconsciousness  when  the  organisation  naturally 
dissolves.  What  arguments  can  justify  expectation  of  a 
sort  of  existence  which  can  no  way  resemble  what  any 
living  member  of  the  human  race  has  experienced  ?  "When 
it  is  asked,"  says  the  sceptic,  "whether  Agamemnon, 
Thersites,  Hannibal,  Varro,  and  every  stupid  clown  that 
ever  existed,  in  Italy,  Scythia,  Bactria,  or  Guinea,  is  now 
alive, — can  any  man  think  that  a  scrutiny  of  nature  will 
furnish  arguments  strong  enough  to  answer  so  strange  a 
question  in  the  affirmative  ? "  Moreover,  how  can  endless 
personal  existence  be  reconciled  with  a  sense  of  personal 
identity;  or  with  the  faintest  memory,  in  an  infinite  future, 
of  the  immortal  person's  immeasurable  past  ?  It  is  difficult 
for  a  grown  man  to  identify  himself  with  the  new-born 
babe  which  he  once  was ; — how  is  this  difficulty  increased 
when  the  person  has  become  millions  of  years  old  ?  What 
practical  identity  can  there  be  between  myself  now  and 
myself  a  hundred  millions  of  years  hence  ?  And,  above 
all,  what  means  a  conscious  life  that  is  endless  or  infinite, 
thus  transcending  years  and  time  ?  Is  not  an  infinite 
succession  of  conscious  states,  or  of  events  of  any  sort, 
impossible  ?  At  any  rate,  what  scientific  verification  of  a 
conclusion  so  stupendous  is  possible?  Even  the  crucial 
instance  of  a  man  who  has  died  and  been  restored  to  life 
telling  his  experience  of  what   followed  his  death  fails : 


THE  UNIVERSAL  PROBLEM.  13 

for  he  could  not  have  had  experience  of  endlessness.  It 
is  questions  of  this  sort  that  the  mystery  of  death  is 
apt  to  suggest  to  those  who  assume  that  the  physically 
scientific  interpretation  of  the  world  must  be  its  deepest 
interpretation. 

Man's  position  in  relation  to  the  final  question  which  Plato's  al- 
gives  rise  to  philosophy,  and  which  evokes  religious  faith  JjjPg^jJ 
and  hope,  suggests  Plato's  parable  of  the  Cave.     Which  illustrates 
things  are  an  allegory,  for  in  them  the  philosophic  Greek  {""i-61?"^ 
figures  the  contrast  between  the  realities  beyond,  and  the 
constant  succession  of  changes  within  this  transitory  em- 
bodied life.     So  that,  with  respect  to  what  really  exists, 
men  in   this  mortal  state  are  not  unlike  those  who  are 
getting  educated  in  a  Cave ;  looking  on  the  shadows  of 
things,  with  their  eyes  turned  away  from  the  light  which 
reveals  the  reality  outside. 

Man's  interest  in  a  settlement  of  his  final  problem  is  God  and 
perhaps  connected  by  Schopenhauer  too  exclusively  with  ^3-^ 
a  vague  desire  for  "  some  kind  "  of  existence  after  physi-  of  man. 
cal  death.  "  We  find,"  he  says,  "  that  the  interest  which 
philosophies  and  religions  inspire  has  always  its  strongest 
hold  in  the  dogma  of  some  kind  of  existence  after  death  ; 
and  although  the  most  recent  systems  seem  to  make  the 
existence  of  God  the  main  point,  and  defend  this  most 
zealously,  yet  in  reality  that  is  because  they  have  con- 
nected their  faith  in  a  future  life  with  God's  existence, 
and  regard  the  one  as  inseparable  from  the  other.  Only 
on  account  of  this  supposed  future  life  is  the  existence  of 
God  important  to  man.  For  if  one  could  sustain  belief 
in  one's  own  unending  existence  in  some  other  way  than 
by  faith  in  God's  existence,  then  zeal  for  the  existence 
of  God  would  cool ;  and  if  conversely  the  absolute  im- 
possibility of  a  future  life  for  man  were  proved,  theo- 
logical zeal  would  give  place  to  complete  theological 
indifference.  Also,  if  we  could  prove  that  our  continued 
existence  after  death  was  absolutely  inconsistent  with 
the  existence  of  God,  men  would  soon  sacrifice  God  to 
their  own  immortality,  and  become  zealous  for  atheism, 
in  order  to  retain  their  hope  of  a  future  life." 

But  does  not  all  this  proceed   upon  a  wrong  idea  of 


14  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

A  universe  what  should  be  sought  for,  when  we  test  the  reasonable- 
without  negs  0£  fajtli  and  hope  in  the  Universal  Power  ?  Does  it 
not  involve  a  misconception  or  what  ought  to  be  meant 
by  the  word  God  ?  For  a  universe  emptied  of  God  is  really 
a  universe  without  meaning,  law,  or  order  ;  without  reason, 
either  omnipresent  in  it,  or  somehow  supreme  over  it, 
and  that  is  therefore  even  physically  uninterpretable ; 
without  trustworthy  active  moral  reason  at  the  root  of  its 
therefore  ultimately  chaotic  evolutions.  It  is  a  universe 
which  may  possibly  be  charged  with  purposeless  future 
misery  to  men,  and  to  all  other  sentient  beings — misery 
infinitely  transcending  that  which  the  most  wretched 
have  experienced  in  the  past.  It  is  a  universe  in  which 
we  must  live  without  reasonable  hope ;  and  on  the  sup- 
position that  each  person's  life  in  it  must  be  endless,  it 
may  become  to  all  an  endless  hell,  from  which  there  is 
no  escape  into  unconsciousness.  Without  perfect  moral 
order  and  goodness  personified  at  its  centre,  man  would 
be  in  a  worse  condition  than  that  of  the  sceptic  whose 
thoughts  are  paraphrased  by  Pascal.  "  Who  has  sent  me 
into  this  scene  in  which  I  now  find  myself,  I  know 
not,"  he  proclaims  in  despair; — "what  the  true  final 
meaning  of  my  surroundings  may  be,  I  know  not ;  what 
I  really  am  myself,  I  know  not.  I  am  in  a  bewildering 
and  terrifying  ignorance  of  all  things :  I  know  not  how 
to  interpret  any  of  the  experience  through  which  I  pass. 
Encompassed  by  the  fathomless  and  frightful  abysses  of 
Immensity  and  Eternity,  I  find  myself  chained  to  this 
one  little  corner  of  their  boundless  extent ;  without  under- 
standing why  I  am  here  rather  than  there,  existing  now 
rather  than  then ;  with  unknowable  Power  all  around, 
which  may  at  any  moment  cause  me  to  disappear  like 
a  shadow.  The  sum  of  my  knowledge,  after  the  utmost 
experience  that  I  can  have  of  the  infinite  universe  in 
which  I  am  living,  is,  that  I  must  soon  die :  my  highest 
wisdom  seems  to  consist  in  nothing  better  than  a  fruit- 
less meditation  upon  the  mystery  of  my  own  death." 
Faith  in  the  omnipresent  supremacy  of  active  moral 
Eeason — faith  in  God — is  the  one  unconditional  human 
hope. 


THE  UNIVERSAL  PROBLEM.  15 

It  is  told  of  Bishop  Butler  that  one  day  in  conversa-  An  insane 
tion  with  his  friend  Dean  Tucker  he  put  the  question,  universe- 
Whether  nations  as  well  as  individual  men  might  not  be 
liable  to  fits  of  insanity  ?  "  I  thought  little  at  the  time 
of  that  odd  conceit  of  the  Bishop,"  the  Dean  remarks ; 
"  but  I  own  I  could  not  avoid  thinking  of  it  afterwards, 
and  applying  it  to  many  cases  of  nations  and  their  rulers." 
Butler's  "  odd  conceit "  may  suggest  a  question  not  unlike 
his,  with  regard,  not  to  nations  only,  but  to  the  ever- 
changing  Universe  in  which  we  are  living  and  partici- 
pating. May  not  the  supposed  cosmos,  to  a  dim  per- 
ception of  which  we  all  awake,  be  the  manifestation  of 
irrational,  or  even  of  infinitely  cruel,  Power  ?  We  have  no 
guarantee  against  the  virtual  insanity  of  the  Universe, 
when  we  lose  moral  reason  in  the  Universal  Power. 
Under  such  conditions,  can  we  even  justify  the  vulgar 
faith,  which,  in  daily  life  and  in  the  previsions  and 
verifications  of  science,  takes  for  granted,  without  proof, 
that  man  is  living  in  an  intelligible  physical  system,  the 
events  in  which  are  fit  to  be  reasoned  about  and  con- 
verted into  physical  science?  For  it  may  then  be  that 
he  is  living  in  what  may  turn  out  at  last  a  physical 
Chaos  instead  of  a  physical  Cosmos  ?  Order  in  the  past 
is  no  security  then  for  order  in  the  future.  May  not  the 
postulate  of  order  in  nature — natural  law  in  things — be 
a  mistake  for  what  at  last  is  purposeless  unreason  at  the 
heart  of  the  whole  ? 

Much  philosophical  and  religious  thought  in  the  past  Absolute 
is  the  issue   of  endeavours  to  find  the  best  answers  to  ^f1^'11 
questions  like  these.     Keflecting  men  have  been  moved  aim. 
to  inquiry  because  they  wanted  to  find  reasonable  security 
that  the  supposed  Cosmos  was  not  finally  Chaos — so  that 
the  world  and  human  faculties  might  be  trusted  in.     This 
is  the  dominant  note  of  absolute  Idealism,  winch  in  its 
own  way  seeks  to  shoiv  that  experience  is  coherent  in  the 
organic  unity  of  reason,  so  that  no  rightly  exercised  human 
being  can  be  put  to  permanent  confusion  by  irrationality 
in  the  Universal  Power. 

Is  moral  faith  in  the  Universal  Power  the  highest  phil-  Questions 
osophy,  and,  if  so,  what  does  this  faith  involve  ?     Is  it  our  which 


16  PHILOSOPHY    OF   THEISM. 


"Natural  most  reasonable  attitude,  demanded  by  and  sufficient  for 
Theology  human  nature  in  its  true  ideal?  Is  the  immeasurable 
St  mean-"  reality,  in  which  I  find  myself  living  and  moving  and 
ingofthe  having  my  being,  rooted  in  Active  Moral  Eeason,  and 
therefore  absolutely  worthy  of  trust ;  or  is  it  hollow  and 
hopeless,  because  at  last  without  meaning,  or  even  mean- 
ing ill  ?  According  to  the  answers  to  those  questions,  our 
surroundings  and  our  future  are  viewed  with  an  ineradi- 
cable hope,  or  with  literally  unutterable,  because  total, 
doubt  and  despair.  It  is  those  questions  that  "  Natural 
Theology  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term  "  has  to  answer. 


got  to  con- 
sider. 


Our  Me- 
thod of 
procedure. 
What  is 


II.  Think  next  about  the  Method  of  procedure  we  are 
expected  to  follow  when  we  are  trying  to  find  the  answers. 
Lord  GifTord's  Deed  of  Foundation  recommends  one  way 
meant  by     0f  dealing  with  the  final  problem  of  existence,  while  it 
ly  natural"  particularly  warns  us  against  another,  as  inconsistent  with 
method  of    genuine  inquiry  and  honest  thought.     The  final  problem 
of  our  Universe  is  to  be  disposed  of,  we  are  told,  accord- 
ing to  the  "  strictly  natural "  method  of  "  science";  accord- 
ing to    methods   as  "  natural "   as  those  adopted  in   the 
sciences  of  astronomy  and  chemistry,  which  are  mentioned 
as  examples.     This  is  one  instruction.     The  other  is  that 
we  are  to  pursue  the  inquiry  "  without  reference  to,  or 
reliance  upon,  any  supposed  special,  exceptional,  or  so- 
called  miraculous  revelation." 
Ambigu-  Each  of  these  conditions,  so  stated,  seems  to  involve 

lty-  ambiguity. 

Natural  In  the  first  place,  it  seems,  as  I  have  already  said,  that 

theohjgyis  ^g  wnolly  unique  science  of  the  Universe  cannot  be  a 
urai"in      science  of  natural  causes,  in  the  same  way  as  astronomy 
the  way       an(j  chemistry  are  sciences  of  natural  causes.     For  these 
physical      two,  and  others  like   them,  are   sciences   of  portions   of 
sciences       external  nature ;  their  facts  receive  the  required  explana- 
tion in  inductively  ascertained  laws,  in  which  the  inferred 
cause  is  presentable  in  sense,  and  fit  to  be  experimented 
on.     But  Infinite  Being — the  Final  Principle  of  the  uni- 
verse— that  in  virtue  of  which  the  universe  is  a  universe, 
and  which  keeps  it  a  universe — this  cannot  be  treated  as 
only  a  portion  of  nature.     For  that  would  be  to  divest  it 


THE  UNIVERSAL  PROBLEM.  17 

at  the  outset  of  its  unique  character — to  reduce  "  Infinite 
Being  "  to  the  level  of  the  finite  phenomena  in  which  the 
astronomer  and  the  chemist  see  illustrations  of  natural 
law.  Indeed  this  uniqueness  is  expressly  presupposed 
in  those  words  of  the  Foundation  Deed,  which  speak  of 
"  Natural  Theology  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term,"  as 
being  properly  "  the  only  science  " — "  the  one  universal 
science"  —  thus  contrasting  it  with  special  sciences  of 
portions  of  nature,  like  astronomy  and  chemistry.  The- 
ology, as  Aristotle  saw,  is  truly  that  in  which  all  phil- 
osophy culminates :  for  theology  alone  regards  existence 
in  its  totality — if  indeed  the  term  totality  may  be  applied 
to  what  is  infinite.  Theology  is  infinite  in  its  scope : 
astronomy  and  chemistry  concentrate  themselves  upon 
selected  portions  of  what  is  finite. 

Therefore,   when    theology   is    (perhaps    misleadingly)  The  narrow 
called  "  natural,"  and  when  Gifford  lecturers  are  enjoined  aud  ™d* 
to  treat  this  subject  as  "  a  strictly  natural  science,"  I  am  oT"na?S 
obliged  to  infer  that  the  important  adjective  "  natural "  fure "  and„ 
does  not  mean  that  Infinite  Being,  the  object  of  study  "natural 
and  inquiry,  is   to  be  included   in    nature  —  unless  the 
ambiguous  word  "  nature  "  is  used  in  an  all-comprehensive 
meaning,  and  not  as  a  synonym  for  things  and  persons 
evolved  in   time.      It   is   the  visible   phenomena   within 
this    system    that   natural   sciences,   such    as   astronomy 
and  chemistry,  are   employed  in   seeking  for  and  inter- 
preting.     In    the    narrower    meaning    of    "  nature "    the 
"  Infinite   Being "    of   natural    theology   is   s^crnatural ; 
and  "  natural "  theology  is  concerned  with  what  is  super- 
natural or  metaphysical.     The  implied   analogy  between 
the  theology  that  is  "  natural,"  and  sciences  like  astronomy 
and  chemistry,  must,  therefore,  mean  something  different 
from  their  being  all  concerned  at  last  with  natural  causes. 

I    conclude,   accordingly,   that   the   intended   meaning  Dogmatic 
of  "  natural,"  in  Lord  Gilford's  deed,  is  found  more  fully  assumption 
in  the  next  injunction: — "I  wish  the  lecturers  to  treat  fallibility 
their  subject  .  .  .  without  reference  to,  or  reliance  upon,  of  Church 
any  supposed  special,  exceptional,  or  so-called  miraculous  disallowed. 
revelation."     That  means,  I   suppose,  that,  just  as  u  as- 
tronomy and   chemistry" — the  two  named  examples  of 

B 


18  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


"natural"  science — must  be  formed  by  methodical  ob- 
servation of  events  in  nature,  and  freely  formed  inferences 
founded  thereon— so,  the  theology  which  is  "natural" 
must  be  determined  by  facts,  and  by  principles  of  reason 
known  to  be  true  in  their  own  light — not  dogmatically 
assumed,  on  the  infallible  authority  of  a  Church,  or  of 
books  assumed  to  express  infallibly  the  divine  purpose. 
We  know  that  there  is  no  such  dogmatically  imposed 
authority  for  an  infallible  astronomy,  or  an  infallible 
chemistry,  which  would  supersede  rational  investigation. 
In  like  manner,  blind  reliance  on  supposed  infallibility, 
biblical  or  traditional,  in  matters  of  religious  thought,  must 
be  put  aside  by  the  Gifford  lecturer  ;  so  that  all  the  three 
sciences  —  the  two  physical  ones  now  named,  and  the 
unique  science  of  the  Universal  Power — must  alike  make 
their  final  appeal  to  reason  in  experience ;  not  to  tradi- 
tional authority  per  se,  which  can  never  be  the  final 
court  of  appeal  for  a  reasonable  being,  on  any  question, 
natural  or  supernatural.  What  is  meant  seems  to  be, 
that  reasonableness  must  finally  direct  us,  in  this  as  in 
everything  else,  if  we  are  reasonable  beings. 
But  liter-  So  I  do  not  interpret  the  terms  of  this  Foundation  as 
ary  records  unphil0sophically  putting  an  arbitrary  restraint  upon 
hispira-1116  reason,  by  withdrawing  from  our  regard  part  of  what  is 
tions"form  reported  in  the  history  of  the  world, —  including  those 
re^rded  signal  examples  of  religious  experience,  in  Palestine  and 
experience  elsewhere,  which  claim  to  be  the  issue  of  what  is  called 
"  supernatural  interposition."  The  Church  and  the  Bible 
present  spiritual  experiences  about  God,  which  somehow 
certain  men  have  actually  expressed  in  words  or  in 
ritual,  and  which  (so  far)  are  facts  in  the  history  of  man. 
Whether  natural  or  supernatural,  in  any  of  the  several 
meanings  of  those  ambiguous  terms,  this  recorded  ex- 
perience is  a  portion  of  history.  It  is  still  the  office  of 
reason  to  judge  under  what  conditions  it  is  reasonable  to 
accept  recorded  human  experience  as  revelation  of  God, 
and  also  to  interpret  the  words  in  which  the  experi- 
ence is  recorded.  Whatever  God  has  revealed  is  cer- 
tainly true;  we  are  obliged  in  reason  to  accept  it,  for 
in   doing  so  we   are  accepting  reason   itself.      But  that 


of  man 


THE  UNIVERSAL  PROBLEM.  19 

this  or  that  which  claims  to  be  divine  is  divine  can- 
not be  assumed  blindly:  reason  must  judge  whether  it 
is  reasonable  so  to  accept  it.  Reason  indeed  can  never 
permit  us  to  reject  a  greater  evidence  in  order  to  em- 
brace what  is  less  evident,  nor  allow  us  to  entertain 
probability  in  opposition  to  absolute  certainty.  No  evi- 
dence that  any  church  or  book  is  divine  can  be  more 
clear  and  certain  than  are  the  universal  and  necessary 
principles  of  reason ;  and  therefore  nothing  that  is  de- 
monstrably inconsistent  with  what  is  reasonable  has  a  right 
in  reason  to  be  received  in  faith.  But  whatever  is  divine 
revelation  can  claim  assent  in  the  name  of  final  reason, 
which  is  itself  the  inspiration  of  Gocl. 

One  finds  much  need  for  Socratic  questioning  when  the  what  is 
terms  "natural"  and  "supernatural"  are  opposed  to  one  ™eantby 
another.  What  conception  of  "nature"  is  taken  when  natural"? 
theology  is  called  "natural,"  and  as  such  admitted  to 
academical  treatment,  as  philosophically  queen  among  the 
sciences  ?  Can  there  be  a  difference  in  kind  between 
what  happens  naturally,  and  anything  that  is  supposed 
to  make  its  appearance  supernaturally — in  an  ultimately 
reasonable  universe  ?  Must  not  all  that  can  enter  into 
the  history  of  the  planet  and  its  inhabitants  be  regarded  by 
the  theist  as  natural — in  the  wide  meaning  of  "  nature  "  ? 
and  must  not  all  possible  events,  whether  called  natural 
or  supernatural,  be  consistent  with  the  divine  intellectual 
order  ?  Nay,  is  not  supernaturalness,  in  another  view, 
the  characteristic  of  man,  so  far  as  man  is  a  moral  agent, 
and  to  that  extent  independent  of  physical  nature  ?  Is 
not  "  miracle  " — when  the  term  is  applied  to  a  physical 
event — e.g.,  the  resurrection  of  a  dead  man — a  relative 
term,  dependent  on  the  limitations  of  human  experience 
and  human  intellectual  grasp  ;  so  that,  in  proportion  as 
man's  intelligence  and  experience  are  widened,  events 
called  supernatural  or  miraculous  would  be  seen  by  the 
eye  of  reason  to  take  their  places  in  the  perfect  order  of 
God ; — but  at  a  point  of  view  perhaps  transcending  the 
share  of  scientific  knowledge  in  which  a  human  intelli- 
gence can  participate  ?  In  the  view  of  perfect  Intelligence 
can  any  event — say  the  resurrection  of  a  dead  man — be 


20  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

miraculous,  and  not  rather  in  natural  conformity  with 
omnipresent  reason  and  purpose  ?  Looked  at  from  the 
centre  of  things,  is  it  not  true  that  either  nothing  should 
be  called  supernatural,  or  all  should  be  called  supernatural  ? 
A  dim  idea  of  this  sort  was  perhaps  in  Bishop  Butler's 
mind  when  he  suggested  that  there  can  be  no  absurdity 
in  supposing  beings  in  the  universe  whose  capacities  and 
knowledge  may  be  so  extensive  as  that  the  whole  Chris- 
tian dispensation,  commonly  called  supernatural  or  mir- 
aculous, may  to  them  appear  natural ;  as  natural  as  the 
visible  course  of  things  appears  to  us.  If  all  that  happens, 
or  can  happen,  in  "nature"  is  the  immediate  issue  and 
expression  of  omnipresent  active  reason,  the  distinction 
between  natural  and  supernatural  seems  in  the  end  to 
disappear ;  but  not  therefore  the  distinction  between  what 
is  merely  physical  or  sensuous  and  what  is  spiritual ;  nor 
is  the  rational  possibility  shut  out  of  events  by  man  for 
ever  incalculable, 
is  Faith  a  Locke,  according  to  Hume,  was  the  first  Christian  who 
species  of  ventured  openly  to  assert  that  faith  was  nothing  but  a 
species  of  reason,  and  that  religion  intellectually  con- 
sidered was  a  branch  of  philosophy.  Omnipresent  ra- 
tional order,  not  irrational  and  capricious  interference 
with  rational  order,  must  be  presupposed  at  the  founda- 
tion of  all  "  revelations  "  of  the  character  of  the  Univer- 
sal Power,  whether  the  revelations  are  called  natural  or 
supernatural.  This  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  principle 
on  which  Goethe  objected  to  Hegel,  for  transforming 
the  Christian  religion  into  philosophy,  namely,  that 
philosophy  has  really  nothing  to  do  with  it;  inasmuch 
as  Christianity  is  sustained,  not  by  philosophy,  but  by 
being  found  in  experience  to  have  a  might  of  its  own,  by 
which  dejected,  suffering  humanity  is  re- elevated  from 
time  to  time.  For  in  this,  which  after  all  is  an  argu- 
mentative appeal  to  experience,  the  spiritual  efficiency 
of  Christianity,  proved  by  the  consequences  of  its  en- 
trance into  the  world,  is  taken  by  reason  as  a  justifica- 
tion of  Christian  faith. 

III.  Further,  Lord  Gifford's  Deed  gives  a  moral  motive 


THE  UNIVERSAL  PROBLEM.  21 

for  his  encouragement  of  "  Natural  Theology  "  in  its  wide  niustra- 
meaning.     It  was  because  he  saw  in  true  knowledge  of  JkTdepen- 
God  the  means  of  man's  highest  welfare,  and  security  for  dence  of 
his  upward  progress;  and  also  that  this  knowledge_ could  J^Xct 
be  thus  valuable  only  when  it  was  reasonable  conviction,  upon  our 
"  really  felt  and  acted  on,"  not  merely   speculation  ab-  J^jj^" 
stracted  from  human  life  and  social  regard.     And  I  think  0f  life. 
it  may  be  granted  that  the  ultimate   conception  of  life, 
in  its  relations  to  Omnipresent  Power,  which  a  man  (con- 
sciously or  unconsciously)  acts  under,  is  that  which  chiefly 
makes  him  what  he  is.     Take  some  obvious  illustrations. 
If  a  man  fully  accepts  a  final  conception  of  the  universe, 
which  makes   him   only  the  passive   subject  of  blindly 
necessitated  natural   evolution,  morality  and  immorality 
become  meaningless  words,  and  Fatalism,  as  the  logical, 
is  also  the  practical  issue.     Again,  our  conduct  and  our 
judgments  of   human    action  must   differ   widely  as   the 
wholly  material  or  the   spiritual,   the   pessimist   or   the 
optimist,  conception  of  existence,  governs  our  lives.    Also, 
unless  we  presuppose  omnipresent  Goodness  in  the  uni- 
versal evolution,  we  cannot  justify  any  interpretation  put 
upon  events  by  science :  it  is  all  physical  chaos,  under  a 
temporary  semblance  of  cosmos ;  deceptive  chaos,  with  a 
present  pretence  of  order. 

It  must  surely   be  with  a  sense  of  weighty  practical  Theuniver- 
issues  that  we  address  ourselves  to  the  consideration  of  i^p™ay 
the  supreme  problem  which  in  faint  outline  I  have  now  be  treated 
put  before  you.      In  the  treatment  of  it,  either  of  two  J^Jy'ra 
objects  may  be  prominent.      It  may  be  treated  histori-  metaphysi- 
cally, as  an  investigation  of  the  religions  of  the  world  in  cally- 
their  natural  evolution,  in  a  historical  science  and  psycho- 
logical analysis  of  Keligion ;  or  it  may  be  treated  meta- 
physically, as  an  examination  of  the  ultimate  foundations 
of  the  religious  conception   of  the  universe,  in  a  Phil- 
osophy of  Theism.     In  Scotland  both  these  courses  were 
followed   by  David   Hume.      The  one  is  exemplified  in 
his    '  Natural    History   of   Keligion,5    a    pioneer    of    that 
Science  of  Keligion  which  is  characteristic  of  the  nine- 
teenth century ;  the  other  is  the  subject  of  Hume's  '  Dia- 


22 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Is  the 
theological 
conception 
of  the  uni- 
verse an 
anachron- 
ism and 
absurd  ? 


The  meta- 
physical 
points  of 
view  prom- 
inent in 
this 
Course. 


logues  concerning  Natural  Eeligion,'  in  which  we  are 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  metaphysical  questions 
which  underlie  religion  and  all  human  experience. 

Lecturers  on  the  Gifford  Foundation,  in  this  and  the 
other  Scottish  Universities,  have  hitherto,  I  think,  in- 
clined to  the  historical  treatment  of  Eeligion.  Deeply 
interesting  as  that  is,  it  leaves  in  the  background  the 
supreme  human  question,  especially  in  a  sceptical  age — 
the  truth  or  validity  of  Eeligion  in  any  of  its  develop- 
ments. Can  it  be  philosophically  justified  ?  Is  it  a  per- 
manent attitude  of  human  nature,  consistent  with  reason, 
if  not  the  culmination  of  reason  in  man  ?  Can  truth  in 
such  matters,  or  if  not  in  any  matter,  be  either  naturally 
or  supernaturally  reached  by  man  ?  Is  the  religious  con- 
ception of  the  universe  a  protracted  illusion,  characteristic 
of  certain  lower  stages  of  human  development,  but  an 
anachronism  in  a  civilisation  like  that  of  modern  Europe 
and  America,  which  demands  verified  prevision  under  a 
physical  or  mechanical  conception  of  the  universe,  as  the 
only  legitimate  criterion  of  reality  ? 

I  propose  to  take  the  second  of  these  two  points  of  view, 
and  so  to  deal  metaphysically  with  the  final  human  prob- 
lem. This  involves  inquiry  into  foundations  of  the  differ- 
ent final  interpretations  of  existence  —  all  religious,  if 
religion  means  vague  recognition  by  man  of  Power  in  the 
universe  that  is  superior  to  his  own — not  all  properly 
theistic.  Philosophy  of  Theism,  not  Natural  History  of 
Eeligion,  is  our  subject — yet  with  the  history  taken  in 
occasionally,  in  illustration  of  the  philosophy.  The  moral 
interest  of  the  history  lies  in  the  validity  and  worth  of 
the  faith.  Eeligion  presupposes  that  human  experience 
demands  a  deeper  interpretation  than  that  offered  in  the 
conceptions  of  natural  science.  Theistic  faith  claims  for 
man  an  obligation  in  reason  to  recognise  the  universe 
as  supremely  or  finally  a  moral  and  spiritual  unity.  Ee- 
ligious  phenomena  are  insufficiently  treated,  when  regarded 
only  as  transitory  physical  growth  or  evolution,  the  scien- 
tific ordering  of  which  is  taken  for  our  whole  intellectual 
concern  with  them.  One  still  wants  to  be  satisfied  regard- 
ing their  practical  and  their  eternal  validity.     One  wants 


THE  UNIVERSAL  PROBLEM.  23 

to  find  whether  he  is  obedient  to  the  inevitable  limita- 
tions of  human  knowledge,  when  he  ventures  to  put  a 
religious  meaning  upon  experience,  and  treats  this  as  its 
most  real  meaning.  Is  filial  faith  in  Omnipotent  Good- 
ness a  reasonable  state  of  the  human  mind,  and  even  an 
indispensable  moral  postulate  of  human  experience  ? 

In  what  follows  I  will  try  to  supply  some  incitement  Aids  to 
and  direction  to  reflection  upon  our  final  attitude  towards  Jjf^JXal 
the  universe,  frankly  facing  difficulties  that  are  apt  to  attitude  to- 
occur  to  thoughtful  persons,  always  seeking  to  keep  reality  ^^e 
honestly  in  view,  and  satisfied  to  make  the  best  of  glimpses 
of  reality  that  may  be  within  our  reach  in  this  embodied 
life. 


24 


LECTUEE  II. 


THREE  PRIMARY  DATA:  EGO,  MATTER,  AND  GOD. 


Ultimate 
threefold 
articula- 
tion of  the 
universe  of 
existence. 


The  three 
primary 
data  are 
differently 
conceived 


The  ultimate  problem  of  existence,  in  the  vague  form 
in  which  it  was  presented  in  last  lecture,  may  seem 
to  evade  intellectual  grasp.  It  must  be  further  ar- 
ticulated before  it  can  be  taken  hold  of  for  orderl)r 
meditation  and  investigation.  An  advance  towards  this 
is  made  when  we  recognise  that  the  infinite  reality  of 
which  we  are  part,  into  which  we  are  all  born,  and  the 
meaning  and  purpose  of  which  philosophy  and  religion 
are  especially  concerned  with,  presents  three  primary 
data.  Each  of  these  .men  seem  to  be  obliged  in  some 
degree  to  recognise,  but  with  innumerable  differences  in 
their  individual  conceptions.  The  three  data  make  their 
appearance,  in  the  very  words  of  Lord  Gifford's  Deed 
which  define  the  province  of  "Natural  Theology,  in  the 
widest  meaning  of  the  term."  Eor  the  words  represent  it 
as  comprehending  "  knowledge  of  God's  nature  and  attri- 
butes ; "  knowledge  of  "  the  relations  of  men  to  God  ; "  and 
"knowledge  of  the  relations  which  the  whole  universe 
bears  to  God."  Here  we  have  "men" — exemplified  by 
each  man  for  himself,  in  his  own  private  consciousness ; 
then  the  material  world  outside  each  conscious  ego ;  and, 
for  the  final  synthesis,  "  God  "  —  Infinite  or  Universal 
Power. 

But  although  these  three  data  are  commonly  postulated 
as  distinguishable  existences,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
"  existence  "  —  "  substance  "  —  "  reality,"  and  suchlike 
terms,  are   applied  to  each   of   the   three   in   the   same 


THREE    PRIMARY    DATA.  ZO 

meaning,  by  all  men  in  all  stages  of  their  intellectual  by  different 
and  spiritual  development.  All  men  do  not  think  alike  minds- 
when  they  employ  the  personal  pronoun  "  I," — a  pronoun 
so  often  uttered,  yet  withal  so  mysterious.  Not  less  do 
they  differ  in  their  conceptions  when  they  speak  of  the 
material  world,  as  we  find  when  they  try  to  define  the 
words  "  matter "  and  "  external."  Most  of  all  does  dif- 
ference appear  when  they  try  to  conceive  "  God."  Each 
of  the  three  ideas  assumes  different  phases  when  it  is 
traced  throughout  the  history  of  man ;  and  the  variations 
are  connected  with  the  sort  of  experience  that  persons 
who  employ  the  words  pass  through,  and  their  power  of 
interpreting  it.  Moreover,  one  of  the  three  primary  data 
is  apt  to  be  conceived  as  more  entitled  to  have  existence 
and  substance  and  power  affirmed  of  it  than  the  other 
two.  In  the  view  of  one,  the  Ego  is  so  borne  in  upon 
him  as  to  usurp  the  supreme  place  :  the  existence  of 
things  outside  in  space  and  the  existence  of  God  are 
taken  as  illusory,  because  reached  only  through  acts  of 
each  private  consciousness  —  there  being  no  other  con- 
sciousness than  his  own  which  a  man  can  use.  To  another 
man,  Matter,  or  what  can  be  measured  and  moved,  forms 
his  final  idea  of  reality,  compared  with  which  the  Ego 
and  God  look  shadowy.  And  in  the  mind  of  the  "  God- 
intoxicated"  Spinoza,  or  of  the  religious  mystic,  Infinite 
Being  seems  to  exhaust  reality,  and  to  absorb  the  other 
two  data. 

The  mutual  relations  of  the   individual  Ego,  Matter,  Conse- 
ancl  Gocl,  form  the  principal  part  of  Natural^  Theology,  JJJ^jJ 
regarded  as  the  Philosophy  of  Theism.     Anterior  to  and  the  three 
independent   of  philosophy,  a  tacit  faith  in  the  ego,  in  beingover- 
external  things,  and  in  God,  seems   to  pervade   human  sised.. 
experience ;    mixing,  often  unconsciously,  with  the  lives 
of  all ;   never  perfectly  defined,   but  in  its  fundamental 
ideas  more  or   less  operative ;    often   intellectually   con- 
fused, yet  never  without  a  threefold  influence  in  human 
life.      We    may   even    say   that   unbalanced   recognition 
of   one    of    the    three    over    the    other  two,  in   thought, 
feeling,  and    action,  is    the    chief   source   of   intellectual 
error   and   moral   disorder ;    add    that   life   is   good    and 


26  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

happy  in  proportion  to  the  due  acknowledgment  of  all 
the  three.  Confused  conceptions  of  the  three  are  an 
inexhaustible  source  of  two  extremes — superstition  and 
scepticism. 

The  three  Take  Locke's  account  of  the  foundation  of  certainty  as 
dataa7  to  the  ES0'  Matter,  and  God.  It  is  given  expressly  in 
articulated  three  chapters  of  the  fourth  book  of  his  '  Essay ' :  but, 
by  Locke.  inc|eec|)  the  whole  '  Essay '  converges  and  rests  in  the 
end  upon  what  Locke  calls  "  man's  threefold  knowledge 
of  existence."  I  choose  Locke  among  philosophers  for 
this  purpose,  because  he  gives  expression  more  than  most 
of  them  to  the  uncriticised  convictions  of  the  common 
mind ;  and  before  natural  science  and  theological  ideas 
were  modified,  either  by  the  conception  of  universal 
physical  evolution,  or  by  the  philosophical  criticism  of 
Kant  and  the  dialectic  of  Hegel.  I  want  to  present 
Locke's  homely  articulation  of  the  ultimate  problem  of 
the  universe,  as  a  preparation  for  the  consideration  of 
more  pretentious  philosophical  speculations,  which  try  to 
resolve  the  three  primary  data  into  one.  He  puts  the 
case  in  the  ninth  chapter  of  the  fourth  book  of  the 
'  Essay,'  and  by  implication  in  the  twenty-third  chapter 
of  the  second  book. 

• 
How  the  In  Locke's  view,  the  most  obvious  of  the  three  final 

tioTof  mS  certainties  is  Ego — the  assurance  one  has  of  his  own  exist- 
own  exist-  ence.  This  arises  when  he  recognises  himself  to  be  some- 
ence  arises.  j10W  more  than  a  succession  of  conscious  states — as  the 
invisible  personal  centre  to  which  alone  a  portion  of  the 
conscious  experience  that  is  in  process  in  the  universe 
must  be  referred,  as  being  his  own  private  and  con- 
tinuous conscious  life.  "As  for  our  own  existence,"  he 
says,  "  we  perceive  it  so  plainly  and  so  certainly  that 
it  neither  needs  nor  is  capable  of  any  proof.  For  noth- 
ing can  be  more  evident  to  me  than  my  own  existence. 
I  think,  I  reason,  I  feel  pleasure  and  pain:  can  any 
of  these  states  be  more  evident  to  me  than  my  own 
existence  ?  If  I  doubt  of  all  other  things,  that  very 
doubt  makes  me  perceive  my  own  existence.     Experience 


THREE    PRIMARY    DATA.  27 

then  convinces  us  that  we  have  an  intuitive  knowledge 
of  our  own  existence,  an  internal,  infallible  perception 
that  we  are."     (Bk.  iv.  ch.  ix.) 

In  this  postulate  Locke  is  giving  expression  to  the  un-  The  datum 
criticised  conviction  of  the  human  mind.  Enigmas  that  °*  na^te 
underlie  the  datum  are  left  to  the  speculating  philosopher  person- 
to  disinter.  They  emerge  when  we  proceed  to  rake  Locke's  ™J*y'  or 
foundation.  For  further  reflection  is  provoked  to  ask, — 
What  is  meant  by  one's  existence  as  a  separate  person, 
— that  something  more  than  a  series  of  isolated  conscious 
states,  which  is  supposed  to  be  signified  by  the  pronoun 
"  I "  ?  This  is  the  riddle  of  personality.  The  personal 
pronoun,  in  so  far  as  it  means  this  "  something  more," 
means  something  that  cannot  be  perceived  by  the  senses 
or  pictured.  Must  it  therefore  be  discharged  from  lan- 
guage, as  empty  sound  ?  This  is  the  way  the  personal 
pronoun  has  been  sometimes  treated.  David  Hume,  for 
example,  dismissed  all  terms  as  jargon  to  which  no  imag- 
ination could  be  attached;  and  on  this  principle  he  virtu- 
ally dispensed  with  the  personal  pronoun  "  I."  For,  after 
trying  the  experiment,  he  said  he  could  never  light  upon 
anything  perceptible  or  imaginable,  corresponding  to  "  I " 
— only  isolated  and  transitory  conscious  states ;  so  he  con- 
cluded that  if  any  one  pretended  to  think  that  the  Ego 
was  something  more  than  the  single  perception  or  feeling 
of  the  moment,  it  was  "impossible  to  reason  with  him." 
If  any  one  perceives  something  simple  and  continued 
which  he  calls  "himself,"  I  am  certain,  he  asserts,  that 
there  is  no  such  perception  of  continuous  existence  in 
me.  But  this  negative  certainty  of  Hume  is  confronted 
by  the  difficulty,  that  if  the  personal  pronoun  signifies 
nothing  more  than  isolated  momentary  perceptions,  there 
must  be  as  many  persons  or  egos  as  there  are  momentary 
perceptions ;  each  momentary  perception,  in  what  is  com- 
monly called  one's  "  mind,"  constituting  a  separate  person, 
whose  personal  life  lasts  only  as  long  as  the  momentary 
consciousness  lasts.  It  is  further  confronted  by  the  fact 
that  the  mysterious  ego  inevitably  reappears  by  implica- 
tion in  the  words  and  actions  even  of  the  sceptical  philo- 
sopher, who  is  thus  obliged   in   fact   to   acknowledge  as 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


real  more  than  can  be  presented  in  sense  or  pictured  in 


sensuous  imagination. 
Enigmas  There  are  other  enigmas  involved  in  our  own  existence 

involved      tnat  ije  more  on  the  surface  than  the  one  now  suggested. 

in  tne  ides,  oo 

of  our  own  The  origin,  gradual  evolution,  and  final  destiny  of  the 
individual  invisible  and  continuous  Ego ;  the  relations  of  the  Ego 
of  which  we  are  conscious  to  its  visible  organism  ;  the 
need  and  nature  of  its  connection  with  Matter,  —  are 
among  the  questions  suggested  by  the  meaning  of  the 
personal  pronoun  which  modern  thought  presses  upon 
us.  Locke  is  satisfied  with  giving  emphatic  expression 
to  his  spontaneous  conviction  of  his  own  existence.  Si 
?i07i  rogas,  intelligo. 
The  belief  He  deals  more  analytically  with  perception  of  things 
thatmov-  present  to  the  senses — the  second  of  the  three  primary 
and  in-  '  data.  Contact  and  collision  with  outward  things  is  found 
dividual  to  De  the  occasion,  if  not  the  origin,  of  our  awaking  into 
exisTout-  an  irresistible  conviction  of  our  personality.  For  that 
side  me.  conviction  involves  a  perception  of  something  outside  each 
ego,  to  which  the  personal  states  are  found  related.  Every 
act  of  sensuous  perception  "  gives  us,"  Locke  says,  "  an 
equal  view  of  both  parts  of  Nature — the  corporeal  and  the 
spiritual.  Whilst  I  know,  by  seeing  and  hearing,  that 
there  is  some  corporeal  being  without  me, — the  object  of 
that  sensation,  I  do  more  certainly  know  also  that  there 
is  some  spiritual  being  luithin  me  that  sees  and  hears 
that  object."  So  he  finds  that  the  human  ego  becomes 
simultaneously  possessed  of  this  "irresistible  assurance" 
of  the  outside  existence  of  things  visible  and  tangible ; 
things  which  cannot  be  appropriated  by  the  ego  as  states 
of  itself,  in  the  way  that  its  own  past  and  present  feelings 
and  thoughts  are  appropriated.  But  it  is  important  to 
remark  that  it  is  a  portion  of  "  outward  existence  "  very 
limited  in  extent  and  duration,  which  is  supposed  by  Locke 
to  be  perceived,  without  need  or  possibility  of  proof — over 
and  above  the  spontaneity  of  the  sensuous  perception  itself, 
and  the  certainty  which  this  spontaneity  is  taken  to  in- 
volve. The  object  spontaneously  perceived  is  limited,  be- 
cause the  world  of  "  outward  things  "  is  in  constant  change. 
And  the  fluctuating  objects  are  felt  to  be  certainly  real 


THREE    PRIMARY    DATA.  29 

only  (so  Locke  assumes)  during  the  moment  in  which  each 
outward  thing,  "  by  actually  operating  upon  our  senses,"  in 
a  manner  forces  us  to  perceive  it  then  and  there  existing. 
Accordingly,  when  an  outward  object  is  withdrawn  to  a 
distance  from  one's  organs  of  sense,  or  separated  by  an 
interval  of  time,  Locke  assumes  that  one  has  no  absolute 
certainty  of  its  still  continued  existence.  Its  absent 
existence,  at  least  in  the  form  it  had  when  it  was  pres- 
ent, can  only  be  inferred,  and  with  a  probability  varied 
according  to  circumstances.  When  one  is  looking  at  the 
sun,  he  must  have  perfect  assurance  that  the  sun  is  then 
really  existing:  this  is  the  spontaneous  certainty  of  im- 
mediate perception.  But  when  at  night  he  is  only  expect- 
ing its  reappearance  in  the  morning,  this  expectation  is 
nothing  more  than  probable  conviction  of  the  continued 
existence  of  the  absent  sun :  the  solar  system,  Locke 
would  say,  might  conceivably  be  dissolved  before  morn- 
ing; and  there  is  no  unconditional  guarantee  that  this 
may  not  actually  happen. 

Innumerable  enigmas  underlie  Locke's  infallibly  cer-  Enigmas 
tain    sensuous   perception    of   outward   things  —  enigmas  involvedin 
scarcely  apprehended  by  him,  especially  in  the  forms  in  of  things1* 
which  they  now  appear  in  scientific  and  religious  thought,  existing 

T   l  i  tt      ±  1 1  ^    i  i  «  ■  outwardly. 

lake  an  example.  He  tells  us  that  we  have  an  "irre- 
sistible assurance  "  of  the  present  corporeal  reality  of  all 
things  that  are  "actually  operating"  upon  "our  senses" 
— especially  upon  the  senses  of  sight  and  touch — as  long 
as  they  persist  in  "  actually  operating  "  upon  those  senses. 
Here  a  question  of  far-reaching  significance  arises,  which 
Locke  touches  only  incidentally.  In  what  meaning  of  the 
ambiguous  words  "  power,"  "  operation,"  and  "  cause,"  may 
any  things  of  sense  be  said  to  operate  either  on  one  an- 
other or  on  me  ?  Have  I  reason  for  supposing  that  an 
atom  or  a  mass  of  atoms  can  be  rightly  called  an  agent ; 
although  in  common  and  also  in  scientific  language  bodies 
are  so  spoken  of — nay,  are  even  supposed  by  materialists 
to  be  the  only  agents  in  the  changes  constantly  going  on 
in  the  universe  ?  Locke  at  any  rate  hesitates  to  include 
"  active  power  "  in  the  complex  idea  we  are  justified  in 
forming  of  material  substance ;  although  he  falls  into  the 


30  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

popular  mode  of  expression ;  for  he  occasionally  speaks  of 
bodies  "  operating."  "  But,"  he  suggests,  with  characteristic 
caution,  in  the  part  of  the  '  Essay '  where  the  "  powers  of 
substances  "  are  expressly  treated  of,  that  "  material  sub- 
stances are  not  so  entirely  active  powers  or  agents  as 
our  hasty  thoughts  are  apt  to  represent  them."  Indeed, 
"  whether  matter  be  not  wholly  destitute  of  active  power 
may  be  worth  consideration."  But,  if  that  be  so,  the  solid 
movable  things  by  which  we  are  surrounded  can  be  only 
the  natural  occasions,  not  the  origin,  of  our  perceptions  of 
them.  He  begins  to  see  that  we  must  look  elsewhere  than 
to  things  visible  and  tangible  for  the  power  that  directs 
the  changes  which  the  natural  sciences  are  gradually 
learning  to  explain.  It  is  only  established  order  of 
procedure  in  external  nature,  not  causation  proper,  that 
those  sciences  are  concerned  with.  Natural  science  is 
only  articulate  application  of  our  faith  that  in  nature 
the  future  will  so  resemble  the  past  that  we,  through 
the  past,  may,  with  practical  safety,  to  some  extent 
forecast  the  future.  But  our  interpretations  are  often 
mistaken,  when  tested  by  the  issue ;  and  even  in  those 
cases  in  which  they  are  verified  by  experiment,  it  is  only 
probable  verification,  not  unconditional  certainty,  that 
one  is  landed  in.  The  concrete  past  can  never  make  the 
concrete  future  known,  in  the  way  abstract  premisses 
make  known  an  abstract  conclusion  in  a  mathematical 
demonstration.  We  do  not  know  all  the  powers  which 
determine  changes,  or  the  possible  action  of  the  Universal 
Power.  Accordingly,  we  cannot  be  said  to  know  uncon- 
ditionally  even  that  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow.  An 
"accident,"  as  in  our  ignorance  we  might  call  it,  may 
occur  to  the  solar  system  in  the  interval,  so  that  there 
may  be  no  "  to-morrow "  in  the  ordinary  meaning.  All 
physical  "  science  "  of  outward  things  is  sustained  at  last 
in  undemonstrable  faith. 
Duality  of  Nevertheless — with  mysteries  like  these  wrapped  up  in 
Matt?r°aud  tne  two  c^ta — tn^s  cuiality  °f  conscious  person  and  un- 
conscious .thing  are  tacitly  assumed,  but  by  most  persons 
in  a  si  non  rogas,  intdligo  state  of  mind.  So  one  may  say 
that  he  has  natural  assurance  of  his  own  existence,  as  a 


THREE    PRIMARY    DATA.  31 

separate  self-conscious  ego ;  and  also  natural  assurance  of 
the  existence  of  things  outside  as  long  as  they  are  present 
to  his  senses.  He  finds  when  he  acts  that  he  cannot  rid 
himself  of  either  of  these,  as  working  convictions,  and  he 
finds  that  each  is  the  correlative  of  the  other. 

Still  this  dual  universe  in  which  I  find  myself  is  re-  Finite 
cognised  as  incomplete,  when  one  thinks  of  it  as  consisting  ^f1^ 
only  of  the  ego  and  the  outside  world — the  occasion  to  presup- 
the  ego  of  innumerable  pains  and  pleasures.  Locke  ex-  gjjj^^ 
presses  the  common  feeling  of  this  incompleteness,  dim  infinite. 
in  many,  when  he  finds  himself  unable  to  think  of  his 
own  existence  without  also  recognising  the  existence  of 
"  Something  Eternal  or  Infinite  " — more  and  other  than 
the  ego — more  and  other  than  the  outer  world  of  things. 
He  finds  himself  as  certain  of  the  reality  of  this  Eternal 
Something — as  certain  too  that  this  Eternal  Something 
must  be  Eternal  Mind — as  he  is  certain  of  any  conclusion 
in  mathematics.  He  finds  himself  even  surer  that  an 
Eternal  Mind  exists  than  he  is  that  anything  else  "  out- 
side of  himself "  exists ;  and  he  believes  that  every  other 
human  being  who  makes  the  trial  must  find  that  this  is  so. 
"  It  is  as  certain  in  reason,"  he  says,  "  that  there  is  a  God 
as  it  is  certain  that  the  opposite  angles  made  by  the 
intersection  of  two  straight  lines  are  equal,  or  as  that  the 
three  angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles." 
Yet  while  the  existence  of  the  Universal  Power,  the 
supreme  factor  of  experience,  becomes  conscious  certainty 
in  all  who  reflect,  the  certainty,  Locke  grants,  needs  re- 
flection to  awaken  it.  Without  due  reflection  a  man  may 
remain  as  ignorant  of  Divine  Eeality  as  a  stranger  to 
geometry  may  remain  ignorant  of  the  demonstrations, 
and  even  the  axioms,  of  Euclid,  although  they  lie  latent 
in  the  minds  of  all.  In  like  manner,  many  persons  never 
recognise  necessity  in  experience  for  the  existence  of 
Divine  Mind.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
other  two  data — our  own  existence,  and  that  of  outside 
things — are  also  only  obscurely  recognised,  although  all 
acknowledge  them,  in  feeling  and  action. 

Now  how  does  conviction  of  the  existence  of  Eternal  Lock 
Mind  first  enter  a  human  mind  ?     God  cannot,  of  course, 


e  s 
account  of 


32 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


how  we 
come  to 
iufer 
Eternal 
Mind. 


Can  the 
Eternal 
Power  be 
regarded 
as  self- 
conscious 
Mind  ? 


be  presented  to  our  senses ;  nor,  indeed,  can  any  other 
ego  than  my  own  be  present  to  me,  in  the  way  the 
invisible  ego  is.  Here  is  Locke's  answer : — "  I  cannot 
want  a  clear  proof  that  God  exists,  as  long  as  I  carry 
myself  about  with  me.  For  each  man  knows  that  he 
individually  exists ; "  and  he  also  knows  "  that  he  has  not 
existed  always.  It  is  therefore  inevitable  to  him,  as  a 
rational  being,  to  conclude  that  Something  must  have 
existed  from  eternity,  .  .  .  this  being  of  all  absurdities 
the  greatest  in  the  eye  of  reason — to  imagine  that  pure 
Nothing,  the  perfect  negation  and  absence  of  all  beings, 
should  ever  produce  any  real  existence.  I  cannot  myself 
be  this  Eternal  Something,  seeing  that  my  own  existence, 
as  I  know,  had  a  beginning  ;  and  whatever  had  a  beginning 
must  have  been  produced  by  something  else ;  and  it  must 
have  got  all  that  belongs  to  its  existence  from  that  other 
being.  Further,  I  find  that  I  am  a  thinking  being :  there- 
fore this  Something,  the  original  source  of  my  existence, 
must  be  a  thinking  being  too  ; — it  being  as  impossible  that 
what  is  wholly  void  of  knowledge,  and  operating  blindly 
and  without  any  perception,  should  produce  a  knowing 
being,  such  as  I  am,  as  it  is  impossible  that  a  triangle 
should  make  itself  three  angles  bigger  than  two  right 
ones."  This  argument,  afterwards  elaborated  by  Samuel 
Clarke,  is  in  substance  as  old  as  Aristotle. 

Nevertheless,  Eternal  "  Mind,"  when  recognised  by 
Locke  as  the  translation  of  the  Eternal  Something,  is  this 
with  an  important  qualification.  Am  I  permitted  by 
reason  to  think  of  the  Eternal  Something  as  "Mind," 
such  as  I  find  conscious  in  myself  ?  Is  the  Eternal  Mind 
conscious  mind,  or  is  the  term  "  consciousness  "  applic- 
able to  the  Eternal  Power  ?  Are  we  obliged  to  suppose 
in  what  is  called  God  an  individual  conscious  life,  in 
which  subject  and  object  are  distinguished  as  in  human 
consciousness  ?  May  we  think  of  Eternal  Mind  as  a  sep- 
arate conscious  life,  continually  passing  through  conscious 
changes  ?  and  if  so,  what  is  the  ground  in  reason  for  so 
thinking?  How  do  we  know  that  the  Eternal  Power  is 
an  operative  conscious  life,  and  so  eternally  ?  As  to 
this  Locke  shows   characteristic   caution.      The  Eternal 


THREE    PRIMARY    DATA.  33 

Something,  he  suggests,  may  be  thought  about  as  Eternal 
Mind,  because  it  is  practically  related  to  me,  in  my  ex- 
perience of  my  surroundings,  in  the  way  one  person  is 
related  to  another  person.  But  he  adds,  "  though  for  this 
reason  I  call  it  mind,  I  must  not  " — because  I  thus  apply 
this  name  to  the  Eternal  Something,  in  common  with  my- 
self— "  I  must  not  equal  what  I  call  mind  in  myself  to  the 
Eternal  and  Incomprehensible  Being,  which,  for  want  of 
right  and  distinct  conceptions,  is  also  called  Mind,  or  the 
Eternal  Mind."  This  suggests  the  mystery  of  "  mind  "  as 
supposed  in  the  Universal  Power. 

The  words  I  have  quoted — "the  Being  which,  for  want  Enigmas 
of  right  and  distinct  conceptions,  I  call  the  Eternal  Mind  "  JF"?;?^™ 

i  r  •-I-I--I-I1  the  third 

— show  a  sense  or  the  mystery  involved  in  all  human  belief. 
ideas  of  God.  They  touch  the  question  which  is  at  the 
root  of  the  theological  embarrassment  of  the  present 
day — What  does  the  word  "God"  mean?  And  as  to 
Locke's  "  mathematically  certain  "  proof  of  the  existence 
of  "  Eternal  Mind,"  it  may  well  be  considered  inade- 
quate. To  conclude  that  there  must  be  Mind  Eternal 
or  Infinite,  because  I  am  now  conscious,  and  only  lately 
began  to  be  conscious,  is  surely  an  example  of  circular 
reasoning,  in  which  the  stupendous  conclusion  is  presup- 
posed in  order  to  be  proved.  "  My  own  existence  "  means 
the  existence  of  a  finite  being ;  and  unless  infinity  is  pre- 
supposed in  the  premisses  the  conclusion  fails.  Infinite 
Being  cannot  be  concluded  from  one  finite  being:  God 
is  not  logically  involved  in  me.  When  I  take  data  of 
experience — in  this  case  my  own  short-lived  existence — 
as  the  sole  datum,  this  finite  event  only  cannot  yield 
Infinite  Being  in  the  conclusion.  Finite  data  yield  only 
finite  conclusions,  not,  without  limit  or  condition,  the  in- 
finite God.  And  a  finite  god  only  sends  the  craving  for  a 
cause  in  quest  of  something  deeper.  A  finite  god  leaves 
unsatisfied  the  religious  sense  of  absolute  security,  and 
the  demand  for  an  unconditioned  basis  for  science  and 
human  life.  If  the  word  God  must  mean,  the  Being  whose 
existence  necessarily  forecloses  ulterior  inquiry  as  to  the 
cause  of  Divine  existence,  the  word  in  that  case  cannot  be 
applied   to  any   being  whose  existence  is   inferred  from 

c 


34 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


finite  facts  only ;  and  which,  as  finite,  raises  anew,  in- 
stead of  finally  foreclosing,  the  previous  question,  as  to  the 
cause  of  its  existence.  The  supposed  gods  of  polytheism 
are  finite ; — therefore  dependent,  and  unfit  to  satisfy  the 
need  for  absolute  support,  or  to  meet  man's  sense  of  in- 
completeness in  all  that  is  finite.  The  essence  of  the 
meaning  of  the  word  God  is  necessarily  wanting  in 
them.  When  "  God "  is  taken  to  be  a  conclusion  from 
the  world,  instead  of  a  presupposition  involved  in  all 
reasonable  interpretation  of  the  world,  the  term  is  then 
used  in  an  untheistic  meaning ;  and,  so  far  as  this  applies 
to  polytheistic  religions,  they  are  in  this  respect  untheistic. 
We  must  not  take  the  operation  of  one  finite  being 
upon  another  finite  being  as  analogy  for  forming  an 
infinite  conclusion.  God  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  one 
among  innumerable  individuals,  material  and  spiritual, 
which  make  up  the  universe,  but  as  One  in  whom  all 
have  their  individual  being — One  incomprehensible  under 
genus  or  species — absolutely  unique — incapable  of  being 
classed. 


Morality, 
physical 
science, 
and  reli- 
gion. 


The  three  primary  data  of  reality  are  severally  the 
occasions  of  morality,  science,  and  religion.  My  own 
existence,  implied  in  the  recognition  of  my  continuous 
personality,  and  in  the  power  which  I  refer  to  myself, 
when  I  acknowledge  personal  responsibility,  calls  forth 
ideals  of  duty  to  man  and  God,  and  affords  material  for 
moral  judgments.  External  nature,  at  least  as  presented 
in  our  sensuous  experience,  is  non-moral:  yet  without 
the  medium  supplied  by  external  things  as  signs,  I  seem 
to  have  no  means  of  discovering  the  existence  of  other 
persons ;  still  less  of  receiving  from  them,  or  communi- 
cating to  them  ideas :  so  that,  but  for  a  material  world, 
there  would  be  no  room  for  that  exercise  and  develop- 
ment of  intelligence  which  interpretation  of  visible  nature 
requires,  and  on  which  individual  and  social  progress  de- 
pend :  the  material  world,  non-moral  in  itself,  is  a  medium 
of  social  intercourse,  and  also  a  medium  through  which 
persons  are  individualised  and  morally  educated.  Then, 
too,   without   faith   and   hope   in    the   Universal   Power, 


THREE    PRIMARY    DATA.  35 

on  which  the  universe  of  change  is  presumed  to  depend, 
and  on  which  we  repose,  as  our  basis  for  thought  and  ac- 
tion, both  morality  and  natural  science  must  be  paralysed. 
In  this  divine  faith  religion  is  rooted ;  so  that  secular  mo- 
rality and  natural  science  become  at  last  religious.  Trust 
in  natural  law  is  faith  in  God  in  wrm. 

Superstition  and  scepticism  are  extremes  into  which  Examples 
men  are  led,  by  not  preserving  the  balance  between  the  of  m.iscon" 
three  primary  data  of  reality.  While  no  one  of  the  three  regarding 
can  be  wholly  explained  away,  consistently  with  sane  the  three 
human  life,  any  of  them  may  be  so  exaggerated  as  to  data.^ 
distort  the  final  conception  of  life  and  the  universe. 
Take  examples.  At  certain  stages  in  man's  religious 
and  intellectual  development,  there  is  a  disposition  to 
see  God  only  in  what  is  uncommon,  unexpected,  ab- 
normal ;  and  to  refer  to  what  are  called  "  natural  agents," 
events  that  are  customary.  According  to  this  assumption, 
whatever  is  found  to  evolve  or  grow — evolution  is  another 
name  for  growth — gradually  and  regularly,  is  referred 
wholly  to  a  supposed  "  power  "  in  "  nature,"  which  power 
means  only  the  constant  natural  method  through  which 
the  issue  is  reached :  God  is  recognised  only  when  some- 
thing happens  which  seems  not  to  appear  gradually  or 
undei  natural  law.  So  the  realm  of  natural  operation, 
and  the  realm  in  which  God  is  supposed  to  operate  come 
to  be  regarded  as  each  excluding  the  other ;  with  the  re- 
sult in  an  unconscious  polytheism,  which  makes  one  god  of 
"  nature  "  and  another  god  of  "  supernature."  It  follows 
that  all  scientific  discoveries  of  natural  causes  or  natural 
processes  are  supposed  to  exclude  God  more  and  more 
as  the  constant  agent  in  the  universe.  God  is  seen  acting 
only  in  what  science  cannot  naturally  bridge  over;  and 
these  vacant  intervals  of  course  become  fewer  and  fewer 
with  the  advance  of  science.  The  need  for  a  religious 
interpretation  of  what  happens  in  the  universe  seems  to 
diminish  with  each  step  onward  in  natural  interpretation : 
the  idea  of  the  universe  as  in  itself  throughout  finally 
interpre table  only  physically,  and  therefore  foreclosing  an 
ulterior  theological  conception,  in  the  end  takes  the  place 
of  the  religious  idea  of  the  whole.    The  advance  of  science 


36  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

becomes  the  paralysis  of  religious  thought,  because^ the 
system  of  nature  leaves  no  room  for  that  arbitrary  viola- 
tion of  rational  order  in  which  superstition  and  confused 
theological  thinking  find  the  sign  of  the  providential  pres- 
ence of  God.  When  superstition  is  not  permitted  by 
science  to  retain  an  irregular  and  capricious  universe  of 
this  sort,  its  deity  and  its  religion  disappear.  The  modern 
appreciation  of  natural  causes,  after  dissolving  the  per- 
sonifications of  polytheism,  is  now  destroying  their  relics 
in  inadequately  conceived  theism. 
The  con-  This  conception  of  God,  as  mechanical  and  local  and 

that  God  external,  appears  at  the  bottom  of  theological  appeals 
maybe°C  against  the  presumption  of  the  atheist,  who  dares  to 
found  else-  conciu(je  that  God  does  not  exist,  merely  because  neither 
though  not  our  eyes  nor  our  telescopes  reveal  His  presence— within 
on  this  the  comparatively  narrow  and  always  finite  space  to  which 
planet.  ^^  senses,  even  when  artificially  assisted,  and  our  im- 
agination give  positive  access.  If  not  found  here,  a  God 
may  possibly  be  found  there;  if  not  the  cause  of  this 
which  comes  within  our  experience,  a  God  may  possibly 
be  the  cause  of  something  elsewhere  that  man  cannot  see. 
If  man  does  not  know  every  agent  in  the  wide  expanse  of 
the  universe,  the  agent  that  he  is  ignorant  of  may  be  God. 
If  he  cannot  assign  the  causes  of  all  that  he  perceives  to 
exist,  the  unperceived  cause  of  that  unknown  remainder 
may  be  God.  If  he  does  not  know  how  everything  has 
been  done  in  past  ages,  some  of  those  doings  may  have 
been  the  doings  of  Gocl.  In  short,  unless  I  preclude  the 
possible  existence  of  another  god  by  being  omniscient  or 
a  °"od  myself,  I  cannot  know  for  certain  that  the  God 
whose  existence  I  deny  may  not  exist  somewhere.  Now  a 
god  that  can  be  locally  and  potentially  present,  here,  but 
not  there,  in  this  event,  but  not  in  that  event;  or  that 
might  be  detected  by  a  telescope  in  some  remote  part  of 
space,  if  a  powerful  enough  telescope  could  be  invented ; 
or  detected  only  in  extraordinary  events, — spoken  of  too 
as  "  a  God  " — is  surely  not  the  Unique  Divine  Eeality, 
"  in  which  we  all  live  and  move  and  have  our  being " ; 
presupposed  tacitly  in  all  perception  and  self- conscious- 
ness, or  else  everywhere  and  for  ever  out  of  relation  to- 


THREE    PRIMARY    DATA.  37 

human  life.  God,  as  Bacon  says,  does  not  need  to  work 
physical  miracles  in  order  to  refute  atheists.  If  the  whole 
natural  course  of  things  does  not  presuppose  God,  as  the 
condition  of  its  being  even  physically  interpretable,  no 
extraordinary  local  manifestations  in  nature  can  in  them- 
selves supply  the  proof.  With  the  presupposition  granted 
of  Divine  Eeason  latent  in  the  heart  of  existence,  some 
events  in  the  history  of  the  universe  may  doubtless  be 
more  fitted  than  others  to  evoke  into  fuller  intelligence  the 
corresponding  moral  trust  and  adoration  that  are  latent  in 
man ;  but  without  the  tacit  postulate  of  God  in  all  per- 
ception and  consciousness,  this  fuller  or  richer  intelligence 
of  Deity,  otherwise  evolved  by  enlarged  experience,  finds 
no  adequate  foundation. 

Again.  Is  it  not  also  an  inadequate  and  inconsequent  Or  might 
theism  that  is  left  to  depend  finally  upon  historical  proof  f0a™dbeen 
that  the  cosmical  economy  of  our  little  planet,  or  even  of  long  ago, 
the  solar  system,  had  no  natural  beginning ;  because  under  J^w! 
the  conception  of  natural  beginning  there  could  be  no 
reason,  it  is  assumed,  for  the  supposition  of  "  a  God  "  ?  If 
the  economy  of  the  present  solar  system  must  first  be 
proved  by  historic  records  to  have  been  formed  unnaturally 
— according  to  the  common  expression,  by  a  sudden  crea- 
tive act — before  faith  in  God  can  be  justified,  the  basis 
seems  too  narrow  and  too  precarious  to  support  the  con- 
clusion. It  is  not  enough  to  argue  for  Eternal  Mind,  as 
some  have  done,  on  the  ground  that  it  can  be  proved  by 
the  book  of  Genesis  that  the  visible  world  originated  in 
God,  but  that  there  is  no  historical  proof  that  the  God  in 
whom  it  originated  Himself  had  a  beginning.  If  we  thus 
make  history  settle  questions  which  lie  beyond  its  sphere, 
what  is  the  difference  in  this  respect  between  the  solar 
system  and  the  causally  dependent  "  God "  its  historical 
origin  is  supposed  to  prove?  They  are  both  treated  in 
these  arguments  as  caused  causes.  "  A  mental  world,  or 
universe  of  ideas,"  as  Hume  suggests,  "  requires  a  cause,  as 
much  as  does  a  material  world  or  universe  of  objects.  In 
an  abstract  view,  they  are  entirely  alike ;  and  no  difficulty 
attends  the  one  supposition  which  is  not  common  to  both 
of  them."     Is  it  not  only  after  the  ultimate  divineness  of 


38 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Panmate 

rialism, 


all  natural  processes  has  been  presupposed  that  any  ex- 
perience is  found  to  enlarge  and  illustrate  our  conception 
of  God  ? 

So  much  in  illustration  of  perplexities  in  which  thought 
becomes  involved  under  crude  conceptions  of  the  three 
and  Pan-  '  fundamental  data  and  their  mutual  relations.  The  dihi- 
theism.  culty  of  reconciling  these  three  existences  with  one 
another,  along  with  the  desire  for  undifferentiated  unity 
awakened  in  speculating  intelligence,  leads  to  Monist 
theories  which  profess  to  resolve  all  that  exists  into  One 
of  the  three.  The  theories  differ  according  as  this  or  that 
datum  obtains  exaggerated,  and  in  the  end  exclusive,  re- 
cognition. Thus  the  material  world,  which  fills  the 
horizon  of  sense,  is  taken  for  the  single  reality,  in  a 
final  conception  which  makes  the  universe  at  last  only 
a  universe  of  molecules  in  motion.  This  is  Panmaterial- 
ism,  which  fancies  that  it  finds  in  Matter  what  common 
conviction  refers  to  the  Ego  or  to  God.  On  the  other 
hand,  those  in  whom  the  introspective  habit  is  strong 
are  apt  to  interpret  All  as  ultimately  modified  Ego,  in 
a  theory  of  Panegoism  or  Solipsism.  Lastly,  dissatisfac- 
tion with  a  universe  of  only  finite  beings,  combined  either 
with  reasoned  or  with  mystical  aspiration  after  Infinite 
Eeality,  disposes  the  courageous  thinker,  or  the  pious 
mystic,  to  seek  for  the  One,  neither  in  outward  things 
with  the  Panmaterialist,  nor  in  the  Ego  with  the 
Panegoist,  but  in  God. 


Is  any  of 
these  spec- 
ulations 
a  rest- 
ing-place 
for  man,  as 
a  moral  and 
spiritual 
being  ? 


I  will  now  endeavour  to  occupy  each  of  these  three 
Monist  points  of  view  in  succession ;  to  try  whether 
any  of  them  affords  the  ultimate  conception  needed  by 
man  in  his  spiritual  integrity.  Are  men  under  intel- 
lectual obligation  to  accept  any  of  them,  as  the  final  in- 
terpretation of  all  that  exists,  and  if  so,  which  of  them  is 
thus  obligatory  ?  If  supreme  regard  for  reasonableness 
obliges  us  to  dismiss  them  all,  what  alternatives  are  open  ? 
Must  we  abandon  the  universal  problem,  as  one  which 
does  not  admit  even  of  a  working  human  solution;  our 

the  negative 


final  relation  to  it  being 


uiowledge,  that  the 


THREE    PRIMARY    DATA.  39 

whole  is  a  riddle,  an  enigma,  an  inexplicable  mystery ; — 
so  that  at  last  no  judgment  formed  about  anything  can  be 
regarded  as  more  certain  than  its  contradictory  ?  Is  total 
scepticism  the  issue  of  the  final  rejection,  as  unreal,  of 
any  one  of  the  three  data,  and  of  attempts  to  explain 
man's  life  in  the  universe  in  terms  of  one  only  of  the 
three  ?  These  are  questions  which  we  have  now  to  meet. 
I  will  begin  by  asking  you  to  look  at  existence  as  the 
materialist  may  be  supposed  to  look  at  it,  and  inquire 
whether  Universal  Materialism  is  a  coherent  conception, 
and  the  only  human  solution  of  the  Whole. 


FIRST     PART 


UNTHEISTIC  SPECULATION  AND  FINAL 
SCEPTICISM 


LECTURE    I. 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM. 


In    the   infancy  of   philosophical  speculation,  as   in  the  Early  Hel- 

"   lenic  at- 
tempts to 


early  years  of  each  man's  life,  it  is   the   world   of   solid  k 


and  extended  things  —  what  can  be  seen  and  moved —  finally  in- 
that  is  apt  to  be  regarded  as  the  one  only  reality,  and  terpretthe 

x  o  «/  «/  >  universe. 

as  what  alone  is  entitled  to  be  called  a  Cause.  So  it 
was  that  in  the  age  before  Socrates,  among  the  early 
Hellenic  inquirers,  the  mystery  in  which  we  find  our- 
selves enveloped  when  we  look  before  and  after  seemed 
to  be  relieved,  as  soon  as  some  element  in  matter  could 
be  detected,  out  of  which  it  might  plausibly  be  conjectured 
that  all  originally  issued.  They  were  satisfied  when  they 
thought  that  they  could  answer  the  final  question  about 
man  and  the  universe,  by  resolving  the  Whole  into  some 
sort  of  visible  substance — water,  air,  or  fire — as  primary 
material.  The  totality  of  existence  was  finally  identified 
with  matter ;  but  without  analysis  of  what  matter  ultim- 
ately means,  or  even  a  distinct  conception  of  outward- 
ness in  relation  to  self-conscious  mind.  The  objects  of 
sense  were  tacitly  credited  with  powers  which  seemed  to 
subordinate  the  other  two  of  the  three  primary  data. 
It  was  among  things  that  appeal  to  the  senses  that 
Thales,  Anaximander,  and  other  contemporaries  sought 
satisfaction,  when  their  crude  experience  gave  rise  to 
their  philosophic  wonder.  This  pre-Socratic  materialism, 
latent  in  the  universal  flux  of  Heraclitus,  developed  in 
the  atomism  of  Democritus,  was  idealised,  and  may  be  seen 
at  its  best,  in  the  magnificent  poem  of  Lucretius. 


44 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Material- 
ism in  the 
nineteenth 
century. 


Our  own  nineteenth  century  finds  millions  trying  to 
get  satisfaction  in  the  same  way;  still  turning  for  ex- 
planation to  what  sense  presents,  when  they  are  con- 
fronted by  the  mystery  of  their  own  life  in  the  universe ; 
or  when  their  desire  for  intellectual  unity  rebels  against 
three  final  existences,  and  strives  to  reduce  all  plurality 
to  One.  Modern  materialism,  recognising  the  innumer- 
able useful  secrets  which  the  material  world  holds  within 
it,  and  which  modern  science  is  disclosing  to  the  in- 
crease of  our  knowledge  and  comfort — in  gratitude  for 
what  Matter  is  apparently  doing  for  us  all — is  ready 
to  fall  down  and  worship  its  benefactor,  and  to  lose 
Man  and  God  in  the  immensity  of  outward  things  and 
their  eternal  evolution.  For  science  of  outward  things, 
after  three  centuries  of  successful  experimental  inter- 
course with  the  world  that  is  presented  to  the  senses,  has 
much  to  say  for  itself.  It  is  able  to  say  that  it  has 
gradually  succeeded,  with  universal  consent,  in  inter- 
preting many  things  that  surround  us  in  space,  solid  and 
extended ;  one  kind  of  thing  that  we  see  being  said 
to  explain  another  kind  of  thing  that  can  also  be  seen ; 
and  it  is  ready  to  contrast  the  consent  in  physical  inter- 
pretation with  the  perplexities  which  metaphysical  inter- 
pretation of  the  universe  is  said  to  involve.  So  trust  is 
put  at  last  only  on  what  is  outward  and  that  can  be 
verified  by  physical  experiment.  What  can  be  so  made 
good,  one  is  ready  to  say,  is  bound  to  carry  it  over  theo- 
logical dreams,  which  are  all  that  we  possess  when  we 
pretend  to  something  superior  to  sense.  I  seem  to  be 
the  sport  of  illusion  whenever  I  forsake  this  safe  sphere, 
the  naturalist  inquirer  insists :  what  I  see  I  can  also 
touch ;  what  I  touch  I  can  make  experiments  upon ;  I 
can  repeat  the  experiments  in  new  circumstances,  and 
then  compare  at  my  leisure  the  issues  of  various  calcul- 
ated experiments.  In  this  way  I  find  that  I  can  fore- 
see physical  issues,  and  anticipate  the  natural  behaviour 
of  things.  For  these  and  other  reasons  I  am  certain  that 
in  the  data  of  the  senses  I  have  got  hold  of  existence  on 
its  only  real  side.  I  find  that  I  can  use  tangible  and 
visible  experience  as  the  one  undoubted  test  for  inter- 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  45 

preting  whatever  happens  that  is  interpretable.  While  I 
keep  on  this  path  I  can  walk  with  a  firm  intellectual  step, 
and  can  stake  my  life  on  the  certainty  of  my  inferences. 
Such  is  the  voice  of  modern  science  of  external  nature 
in  evolution,  when  translated  into  Universal  Materialism. 
It  leads  back  to  what,  in  naive  and  confused  fashion,  was 
the  assumption  of  Hellenic  cosmologists  in  the  infancy  of 
philosophical  questioning.  It  is  supposed  to  demonstrate 
the  insignificance  of  man  in  nature,  and  therefore  the  base- 
lessness  and  unintelligibility  of  "  the  theistic  hypothesis," 
when  it  pretends  to  be  the  last  word  about  the  Whole. 
For  dogmatic  atheism,  or  at  least  theological  agnosticism, 
is  the  inevitable  philosophy  of  those  who  confine  experi- 
ence to  external  sense,  disallowing  any  other  experience, 
or  any  principle  of  harmony  deeper  than  customary  suc- 
cession of  sense  appearances. 

It  was   not   always   thus   in   the   long  interval  which  The  an- 
separates   Thales   and   Democritus   from    the    nineteenth  tnrop°- 

0£TiLT*lC 

century.      A   teleological    conception    of    existence    that  conception 
might   even   be   called  anthropocentric,  or  man  -  centred,  oftheuni- 
instead  of  the  earlier  or  the  later  materialism,  pervades  Hebrew 
in  a  striking  fashion  ancient  Hebrew  literature,   as  we  am\  H.el- 
have  it  in   Genesis  and  other  books;  intensified   into  a  ature. 
spiritual  anthropomorphism  in  the  Jewish  psalmists  and 
prophets,  with  their  deep  intuition  of  the  moral  relation 
of  man  to  their  vividly  conceived  personal  God.     Unique 
as  were  the  Jews  in  this  respect,  a  teleological,  if  not  an 
anthropocentric,  conception  of  the  universe  is  not  exclu- 
sively Hebraic,  even  in  the  ancient  world.     Among  the 
Greeks  there  was   a  faint  recognition  by  Anaxagoras  of 
active  Eeason  as  the  supreme  cosmic  principle,  superior  to 
blind  necessities  of  molecular  motion,  and  apt  to  suggest 
a  religious  conception  of  the  relations  of  the  Whole.     By 
an   emphatic  acknowledgment  of  Man  rather  than  out- 
ward things  as  the  primary  object  of  human  interest — 
the  moral  agent,  not  the  starry  heavens  —  Socrates  re- 
called  his   followers    from    exaggerated    regard   for   out- 
ward things ;  he  also  directed  reflection  to  ends  latent 
in  reason,  and  connected  with  man  as  the  chief  end.     In 


46 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Above  all 
in  Christ- 
ianity. 


Anthropo- 
centric 
concep- 
tions in 
Medieval  - 


Greece  Socratic  reaction  was  inspired  by  the  genius  of 
Plato,  and  more  articulately  through  the  systematic  in- 
telligence of  Aristotle ;  while  among  the  Eomans  the 
natural  theology  of  Cicero,  based  on  a  theological  idea 
of  the  world,  sometimes  finds  vent  in  language  that 
might  be  called  anthropomorphic. 

But  it  was  the  profound  spirituality  of  Christianity, 
occasionally  exaggerated  among  Christians,  that  reduced 
material  things  to  insignificance,  as  compared  with  per- 
sons, in  the  elaborate  theology  or  philosophy  of  the  ages 
of  faith.  The  conception  of  the  supremeness  of  man  in 
the  cosmos  found  a  scientific  auxiliary  in  the  accepted 
Ptolemaic  astronomy,  with  its  geocentric  conception  of  the 
material  universe,  in  which  all  falls  into  subordinate  re- 
lation to  a  man-inhabited  Earth.  The  destiny  of  man 
thus  came  to  be  regarded  as  even  the  final  and  eternal 
purpose  of  the  universe ;  and  it  was  assumed,  in  har- 
mony with  this,  that  the  Universal  Power  must  be  a 
living  Spirit,  analogous  to  the  spirit  found  incarnate  in 
man. 

A  narrow  anthropocentric  conception  of  the  Supreme 
Principle  of  the  universe  culminated  in  the  middle  age 
of  European  thought.  Monastic  separation  from  the 
visible  world ;  absolute  separation  between  what  was  ab- 
stracted as  secular,  and  what  was  abstracted  as  spiritual, 
or  between  state  and  church ;  opposition  between  nature 
on  the  one  side,  and  supernatural  power  on  the  other, 
were  among  its  symptoms.  It  produced  indifference  to 
physical  order  and  to  science  of  nature;  warfare  with 
those  who  would  rule  their  lives  by  the  physical  idea 
of  law ;  an  endeavour  to  live  only  in  consciousness  of 
supernatural  environment;  man  at  the  centre  of  space, 
seeing  the  infinite  eternal  economy  all  directed  to  his 
own  spiritual  government — man's  welfare  supposed  to  be 
marred  by  acknowledgment  of  spirituality  in  secular  life. 
Eeligion,  under  this  ascetic  form  of  religious  thought, 
took  the  place  in  medievalism  that  is  now  claimed  for 
sciences  of  outward  nature.  The  atomism  of  Lucretius 
was  exchanged  for  the  subtle  Christian  theology  of 
Aquinas,    the    curious    conceits    of    the    '  Divina    Com- 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  47 

media,'  afterwards  in  the  mythology  of  Milton,  and  the 
human  analogies  of  Puritan  divines. 

Man's  imagined  local  supremacy  under  the  Ptolemaic  Local  insig- 
astronomy  encouraged  this  theological  conception  of  human  oJ^^06 
life.  A  scientific  revolution  in  men's  ideas  of  their  place 
in  the  material  universe,  which  seemed  to  reduce  man  to 
his  discovered  local  insignificance,  and  invited  us  to  think 
of  ourselves  as  the  transitory  issue  of  a  natural  process, 
appeared  inconsistent  with  the  supremacy  of  the  religious 
idea,  and  an  invitation  to  the  atomistic  and  mechanical 
one  to  resume  its  old  final  place.  The  postulate  that 
God  is  at  the  root  of  the  Whole  seemed  somehow  bound 
up  with  a  now  exploded  uniqueness  in  the  local  position 
of  man's  earthly  home  in  the  material  world. 

So  modern  free  search  among  the  natural  causes  per-  Bacon  and 
ceptible  by  the  senses  has  been  changing  the  old  an  thro-  ti!eUteieo°U 
pocentric    ideas  —  under   the    scientific   assumption   that  logical  con- 
causation  is  only  regular  sequence,  open  to  experimental  ^wni-^ 
detection,   and   more  or  less  subject    to   human  control,  verse. 
This  assumption  accustomed  the  mind  to  physical  utili- 
ties, and  a  narrow  teleological  conception  seemed  barren 
by    contrast.      The   change    finds   voice   in   what    Bacon 
and  Spinoza  say  about  the  fruitfulness  of  natural  causes, 
as   compared  with  the   inutility  of   final   causes.      It  is 
as  the  visible  means  according  to  which  human  purposes 
may  be  carried  out  by  men,  as  ministers  of  nature,  that 
Bacon   sets  a  high  value   on  material  or  caused  causes, 
and    on   the   science    which   discloses    them :    in   a   final 
cause   he    found    nothing   which   man    could   employ    as 
his  instrument,  or  of  which  he  could  be  the  interpreter. 
Final  causes  look  unpractical :   the  inscrutable  will  and 
purpose  of  a  distant  God  becomes  an  asylum  for  indolent 
neolect  of  the  useful  natural  causes  which  surround  us ; 
or  a  shelter  for  superstition,  withdrawing  men  from  ex- 
perimental inquiry  into  the  texture  of  the  web  of  nature 
in  which  we  are  involved.      So  Spinoza  argues  against 
anthropomorphism.     In  this  he  exceeds  Bacon,  who  com- 
plains only  of  the  abuse  of  final  causes,  when  they  make 
us   neglect   the   causes  that  appeal   to   our  senses,   and 


48  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

that  can  be  adapted  to  human  purposes  in  this  em- 
bodied life ;  but  allowing  for  their  value  in  other  aspects. 
Not  so  Spinoza,  who  insists  that  reason  teaches  men  the 
futility  of  the  very  idea  of  a  final  cause  in  which  man  is 
the  end ;  and  argues  that  until  men  are  satisfied  that 
law  in  nature  is  not  intended  for  their  satisfaction,  they 
are  not  likely  to  be  convinced  that  reality  must  be 
measured  by  disinterested  scientific  evidence.  Nothing, 
he  says,  should  be  concluded  true  or  false,  because  it  is 
or  is  not  in  harmony  with  human  interests  ;  and  it  is  a 
profound  mistake  to  call  things  or  events  good  or  bad, 
because  they  happen  to  be  agreeable  or  repugnant  to  a 
being  so  insignificant  as  man.  On  the  other  hand,  Bacon, 
while  he  presses  the  need  for  engaging  in  the  long-neglected 
search  for  the  causes  that  may  be  found  by  experiment 
within  the  visible  succession  of  nature — seeing  that  we 
may  usefully  employ  such  causes  when  we  discover  them 
— argues  also  that  experimental  search  among  physical 
phenomena  may  even  confirm  and  exalt  our  recognition 
of  divine  purpose.  For  inductive  inquiry  into  natural 
causes,  which  are  the  required  conditions  of  all  changes 
that  go  on  around  us,  so  far  from  dissolving  faith  in  a 
dominant  providence,  only  shows  that  full  human  satis- 
faction is  not  attained  without  discernment  of  divine 
providence  animating  the  natural  evolution. 

The  centuries  since  Bacon  and  Spinoza  have  witnessed 
an  increasing  reaction  against  all  forms  of  theological 
anthropomorphism,  in  the  interest  of  a  secularly  fruitful 
centric  search  for  operations  of  natural  causes,  visible  and  tang- 
conception.  ibl^  un(jer  iaws  which  interpret  our  bodily  surroundings, 
and  our  bodies  besides— laws  which  may  be  applied  by 
men  as  means  for  making  this  a  more  comfortable  plan- 
etary abode.  Thus  the  vast  material  world,  as  containing 
the  only  visible  agents  of  desirable  changes,  has  come  to 
fill  the  popular  imagination :  that  small  portion  of  matter 
which  is  appropriated  by  each  person  as  specially  his  body 
is  reduced  to  relative  insignificance.  The  merely  physical 
interpretation  of  external  nature,  with  its  tacitly  supposed, 
but  undemonstratecl,  faith  in  constant  physical  order,  is 
next  assumed  to  be  the  only  legitimate  sort  of  science, 


Modern 
reaction 
against  the 
anthropo 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  49 

and  to  open  the  only  way  in  which  reason  can  permit  us 
to  walk.  Appeals  to  other  constituents  of  the  faith  out 
of  which  reason  in  man  spontaneously  rises,  and  into 
which,  in  a  more  developed  condition,  it  is  found  at 
last  to  return,  are  disparaged,  as  appeals  only  to  feeling, 
imagination,  or  dogmatic  authority,  not  to  reason ;  which 
must,  it  seems,  be  always  something  physically  natural. 
Shall  we,  then,  surrender  ourselves  to  the  influence  of 
this  intellectual  atmosphere,  and  adopt  the  materialistic 
conception  of  the  universe  of  existence,  as  ultimately 
only  molecules  in  motion  ?  Much  appears  to  recommend 
the  conception  to  the  obedient  disciple  of  fact  and  reason 
when  he  comes  with  those  presuppositions ;  and  then  he 
presses  the  conclusion,  that  the  only  available  solution  of 
the  problem  of  his  life  is  to  be  found  at  a  point  of 
view  at  which  the  invisible  Ego  and  the  invisible  God 
disappear,  as  superfluous  postulates,  added  by  unscientific 
imagination  to  the  one  solid  fact — a  universe  of  molecules 
in  motion. 

A  change  in  the  astronomical  conceptions  of  men  led  the  The  reac- 
way  in  this   modern   revolution.     Copernican  astronomy  JSJedby 
gradually   dissolved  the   old   Ptolemaic   idea  that  man's  astronomi- 
abode  was  the  centre  of  the  material  world — the  starry  ™\ c^ov" 
hosts  dependent  on  human  interests — all  made  for  the  specula- 
service  of  man.     Copernicus  consigns  man  to  a  position  tlon- 
that  has  become  relatively  more  and  more  insignificant, 
locally  considered,  with  each  advance  in  stellar  science. 
Even  under  the  old  assumption  about  the  starry  heavens, 
the  Hebrew  poet  was  lost  in  wonder  that  the  Supreme 
Purpose  should  have  regard  to  a  being  so  insignificant  as 
man :  "  When  I  consider  Thy  heavens,  the  work  of  Thy 
fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars,  which  Thou  hast  ordained  ; 
what  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  and  the  son 
of    man,    that   Thou    visitest    him  ? "      But    with    what 
deepened  emphasis  may  this  question  of  the  unscientific 
Hebrew  be  put  by  the  modern  astronomer  ?     In  the  mind 
of  the  Jew,  the  "  lights "  in  the  vault  of  heaven  which 
cheered   this   solid    earth    seemed,  through   a   wonderful 
providence,  to  have  been  made  because   man  was  made. 

D 


50 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  starry 
heavens 
and  man's 
relative 
insignifi- 
cance in 
Space. 


The  insig- 
nificance 


According  to  his  innocent  conception,  God  had  said,  "  Let 
there  be  lights  in  the  firmament  of  heaven  to  give  light 
upon  the  earth."  But  how  can  so  grand  a  spectacle  as 
modern  astronomy  puts  before  us  be  supposed  by  any 
reasoning  being  to  have  for  its  final  cause  the  convenience 
of  short-lived  animals  who  somehow  find  their  home  on 
this  small  planet — transitory  in  their  successive  genera- 
tions, in  the  Homeric  imagination,  as  the  leaves  which 
yearly  appear  and  disappear  on  the  trees  of  the  forest  ? 

The  progress  of  modern  astronomy  has  been  a  running 
commentary  on  the  local  insignificance  of  men,  when  men 
are  thought  of  only  as  individual  organisms  in  the 
illimitable  material  system  found  in  possession  of  the 
immensity  of  space.  What  is  the  human  body,  invisible 
from  another  planet,  in  comparison  with  the  infinite 
material  world  ?  The  Earth  itself,  instead  of  being  con- 
ceived as  the  solid  centre  of  all  that  exists  in  space,  is 
now  recognised  as  only  one  in  a  system  of  planets,  more 
or  less  like  itself,  some  immensely  larger,  all  revolving 
round  a  central  sun,  on  which  they  and  all  their  contents 
depend.  Then  this  solar  system  itself  is  only  one  among 
innumerable  other  solar  systems,  like  itself,  all  it  seems 
revolving  collectively  round  some  undiscovered  centre. 
And  even  this  enlarged  material  system  may  be  only  a 
subordinate  part  of  an  inconceivably  greater  economy  ; 
which  again  in  its  turn  may  be  an  appendage  to  a  greater 
still ;  and  so  onwards  and  onwards  in  an  unending  series 
of  enlargements, — for  why  should  any  boundary  be  set  to 
the  material  contents  of  infinite  space  ?  What,  indeed,  is 
this  human  animal — so  much  made  of  in  the  anthropo- 
centric  conception — when  placed  beside  the  innumerable 
animals  which  may  occupy  the  innumerable  worlds  that 
are  moving  through  Immensity?  What  is  man  that  he 
should  be  regarded  at  all  in  a  Divine  Purpose  ?  Above 
all,  what  is  man  that  he  should  be  the  one  supreme  object 
in  that  Purpose,  as  in  the  Christian  conception  of  redemp- 
tion, according  to  the  medieval  interpretation  of  it,  which 
so  long  limited  the  teleological  view. 

But  if  scientific  investigation  of  the  contents  of  space 
reduces  the  petty  organisms  of  the  race  of  man,  from 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  51 

supremacy  in  the  Divine  purpose,  to  inconceivable  in- of  men  re- 
significance  in  the  material  system,  this  abatement  of  sar.ded  as 
human  pretension  is  even  more  difficult  to  resist  when  JjSmT" 
one  turns  to  what  modern  science  has  to  tell  about  the  evolved 
course  of  events  in  time.  Above  all,  this  is  so  if  we  m  Time' 
accept ^  the  conception  of  the  causal  process,  according 
to  which  a  constant  evolution  of  the  material  universe 
proceeds  in  what,  for  aught  man  can  know,  may  be  an 
uiibeginning  and  unending  metamorphosis  of  its  molec- 
ular constituents.  If  modern  astronomy,  inaugurated  by 
Copernicus  and  Newton,  has  revealed  the  insignificance 
of  man's  planet  among  the  illimitable  starry  hosts,  and 
the  infinite  insignificance  of  each  ephemeral  human  or- 
ganism, when  all  is  interpreted  in  terms  of  space,  what 
shall  be  said  of  the  revelations  of  modern  geology,  and, 
much  more,  of  modern  biology?  They  seem  to 'show 
that  all  the  living  bodies  on  this  planet,  as  well  as 
the  planet  itself,  are  transitory  issues,  in  continuous 
natural  processes  of  integration  and  disintegration, 
without  beginning  and  without  end.  Some  of  the 
present  laws  according  to  which  their  changes  occur 
have  been  discovered  ;  and  those  persons  who  claim  to 
be  discoverers  have  thus  put  some  passing  pleasures 
within  reach  of  those  by  whom  the  discoveries  may  be 
applied,  or  have  enabled  them  to  escape  some  passing 
pains ;  but  no  ultimate  account  of  all  this  can  be  given. 
Nor  can  we  tell  whether  the  physical  order — presumed 
without  proof  to  be  permanent  within  the  narrow  sphere 
of  men's  discoveries  of  natural  causes — is  really  the  ex- 
pression of  Eternal  Eeason,  or  only  an  accident  during  a 
brief  interval,  within  which  chaos,  in  human  experience, 
assumes  the  semblance  of  a  permanent  cosmos. 

In  the  light  of  geological  and  biological  discovery  and  The  alter- 
speculation,  one  seems  to  see  animal  life  gradually  evolv-  ™tisma  of 
ing,  in  its  relative  place  in  the  continuous  natural  succes-  ^w£in°n 
sion,  in  a  process  according  to  which  lower  forms  of  living  tegration  in 
matter  on  this  planet  are  slowly  followed  by  higher  and  SET* 
more  complex.     Each  generation  in  this  continuous  nat- 
ural evolution,  infinitesimally  different  from  that  which 
preceded  it,  transmits  the  infinitesimal  difference  to  its 


52  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

successors;  and  thus,  out  of  what  may  have  been  the 
common  mass  of  protoplasm  at  an  early  stage,  animal 
life  becomes  gradually  differentiated  into  ever-multiply- 
ing species  —  the  human  organism  the  most  notable 
among  the  organisms  hitherto  evolved  in  the  history  of 
this  planet.  The  human  organisms,  moreover,  at  the 
present  stage  of  the  unbeginning  and  endless  procession 
of  changes  which  the  material  world  presents,  are  found 
to  be  in  advance  of  their  remote  natural  ancestors  in  their 
intelligence; — with  perhaps  a  prospect,  according  to  the 
analogies  of  nature,  of  continuing  to  advance  with  the 
process  of  the  suns.  But  human  organisms,  with  their 
unique  characteristic  of  self-conscious  life,  are  only  some 
of  the  constructions,  naturally  presented,  in  the  un- 
beginning and  unending  evolution  or  metamorphosis  of 
matter.  They  seem  to  rise  into  life  spontaneously,  when 
the  conditioning  material  causes  occur  of  which  organisms 
of  this  sort,  with  their  self-consciousness,  are  the  natural 
sequence.  But  those  physical  causes,  as  well  as  their 
consequences,  are  themselves  passive  subjects  of  the 
natural  rules  of  universal  change.  Eeasoning  by  anal- 
ogy, under  commonly  received  maxims,  all-embracing 
materialism  may  accordingly  anticipate,  in  the  future 
history  of  this  planet,  the  final  extinction  of  human 
organisms,  in  analogy  with  preceding  extinctions  of 
inferior  races ;  with  all  their  works,  their  scientific 
discoveries,  and  indeed  all  signs  of  their  past  existence, 
in  the  general  disintegration  of  the  solar  system. 
Later  still,  the  whole  material  universe  may  be  refunded 
into  the  original  fire  -  mist  out  of  which  it  was  once 
evolved ;  or  it  may  all  be  condensed  into  one  stupendous 
mass  of  molecules — ready  to  resume  another  prolonged 
course  of  natural  integration,  or  natural  creation, — with 
an  issue,  it  may  be,  of  new  stellar  and  planetary  sys- 
tems ;  or  perhaps  of  other  constructions  of  matter,  unpre- 
dictable, because  due  to  physical  conditions  now  un- 
known, and  even  by  us  inconceivable.  In  the  new 
material  universe  of  that  immeasurably  remote  future, 
what  room  is  there  in  retrospective  thought  for  the 
petty  human  organisms  of  an  immeasurably  remote  past 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  53 

— with  their  ephemeral  records  of  social  institutions  and 
social  struggles,  scientific  discoveries,  achievements  of 
mechanical  art,  humanly  admired  creations  of  imagina- 
tion, religions  and  philosophies — all  dissolved  and  buried 
in  the  dissolution  of  the  vast  molecular  economy  in  which, 
even  while  they  existed,  they  were  as  nothing, — for  ever 
forgotten,  in  the  new  heavens  and  new  earth,  into  which 
a  universe,  essentially  of  molecules,  has  then  been  trans- 
formed, in  another  of  its  purposeless  metamorphoses? 
These  are  only  materialistic  dreams ;  but  they  are  dreams 
in  analogy  with  the  universally  materialistic  conception 
of  existence,  which  I  am  asking  you  to  try  to  realise  in 
imagination. 

Two  conditions,  which  both  play  an  important  part  in  Indestruc- 
sciences  concerned  with  Matter,  are  presupposed,  but  not  j^t*J}  °f 
unconditionally  demonstrated.  The  one  is  the  indestruct-  and  con- 
ibility  of  the  material  molecules;  and  the  other,  the  conser-  Energy. 
vation  of  what  is  ambiguously  called  energy,  which  matter 
is  supposed  to  involve.  The  indestructibility  of  Matter 
and  the  conservation  of  Energy  are,  as  you  know,  hypo- 
theses which  dominate  modern  inferences  about  the  past 
and  future  history  of  the  molecules  which,  on  the  material- 
istic conception  of  man  and  the  universe,  form  the  ele- 
mentary totality.  Accordingly,  as  long  as  the  material 
universe  exists — and  it  is  presumed  to  be  indestructible — 
it  must  consist  of  the  same  quantity  of  matter, — the  same 
number  of  molecules  ;  —  this  through  all  the  metamor- 
phoses which  these  have  undergone,  or  may  yet  undergo 
— in  the  form  of  stellar  systems,  and  of  living  matter,  in 
the  various  degrees  of  life,  sentient,  intelligent,  self-con- 
scious, which  less  or  more  elaborately  organised  matter 
is  found  to  manifest;  as  well  as  in  future  issues  which 
human  imagination  cannot  picture.  The  assumption  of 
the  indestructibility  of  matter  forbids  an  inconceivable 
transformation  of  nothing  suddenly  into  something,  as  in 
the  old  idea  of  sudden  creation ;  and  obliges  us  always  to 
suppose  and  seek  for  physical  causes — presentable  to  sense, 
although  not  necessarily  perceptible  by  human  senses — 
when  we  try  to  account,  through  its  exact  material  equiv- 
alent, for  each  new  metamorphosis.     The  history  of  the 


54  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

universe  is  therefore  a  history  of  the  natural  transforma- 
tions of  what  already  exists  molecularly :  the  addition  of 
absolutely  new  molecules,  or  the  absolute  extinction  of  old 
ones,  are  unscientific  conceptions.  Each  new  appearance 
in  nature  implies  an  equivalent  withdrawal  of  some  other 
appearance,  and  the  whole  succession  is  an  endless  meta- 
morphosis. Light  reappears  in  equivalent  heat :  electricity 
in  equivalent  magnetism  :  molecular  changes  in  the  living 
organism,  in  their  equivalent  states  of  conscious  life :  the 
births  and  deaths  of  men  and  other  living  organisms  have 
their  resulting  compensation:  the  births  and  deaths  of 
planets  and  suns  have  deaths  and  births  in  something  else 
corresponding  to  them, 
is  Causa-  If  all  that  has  been,  and  that  can  be,  must  thus  be 
tionwhoiiy  thought  of  at  last  in  terms  of  material  molecules,  the  final 
so  that1 }'  problem  should  be  solved  in  the  discovery  and  exhaus- 
S-hf?  tive  aPPlication  of  tne  ultimate  law  or  laws  according  to 
priori]  he  which  the  innumerable  molecular  metamorphoses  pro- 
the  effect  of  cee(j.  The  search  for  cause  is  confined  to  a  search  for 
anyt  mg.  perceptj_^e  conditions  which  constantly  precede,  or  con- 
stantly accompany,  each  perceptible  change.  Causal 
sequences  are  nothing  more  than  the  sequences  which 
seem  to  be  constant  among  material  phenomena.  As 
constant,  they  become  a  sort  of  language,  in  which 
natural  causes  are  significant  of  their  so-called  effects, 
and  the  effects  of  their  so-called  causes.  To  explain 
the  universe  finally  would  be  to  read  all  its  endless 
changes  under  their  physical  laws.  An  analysis  of  ex- 
perience, in  quest  of  connections  that  are  constant,  be- 
comes the  only  means  for  determining  whether  this  is 
the  cause  of  that ;  not  any  a  priori  idea  of  the  sufficiency, 
or  insufficiency,  of  this  agent  to  be  the  cause  of  this  or 
that  sort  of  change.  Abstractly — that  is  to  say,  without 
finding  that  this  is  always  in  nature  actually  followed  by 
that —  man  has  no  right  to  assume  that  only  this  sort 
of  cause  can  explain  that  sort  of  effect ;  that  unorganised 
atoms  can,  or  that  they  cannot,  account  for  the  self- 
conscious  life  that  is  found  on  this  remote  little  planet. 
Enough  if  experience  presents  life  rising  out  of  certain 
organic  conditions  ;  and  then  conscious  life  appearing  in. 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  5o 

the  more  elaborate  living  organisms:  one  is  bound  hon- 
estly to  accept  the  facts.  One  is  then  told  to  see  in  the 
so  related  molecules  and  their  motions,  the  true  and  only 
explanation  of  the  psychical  phenomena  which  appear  in 
signal  organisms,  especially  in  the  human,  and  which  are 
vulgarly  referred  to  what  is  called  "  mind," — the  abstract 
word  mind  a  convenient  refuge  for  human  ignorance.  At 
this  point  of  view  any  material  thing  appears  a  priori 
equally  fit,  or  equally  unfit,  with  any  other  to  be  the  cause, 
or  constant  antecedent,  of  any  sort  of  change.  Causality  is 
only  the  sort  of  sequence  that  is  imagined  to  be  constant ; 
and  as  any  event  may  be  imagined  to  follow  any  other — 
apart  from  experience  —  anything  may  be  the  supposed 
cause  of  anything  that  happens.  The  falling  of  a  pebble 
may  extinguish  the  sun,  for  aught  we  know  a  'priori ;  or 
the  will  of  a  man  may  disturb  the  planets  in  their  orbits. 
When  I  see  one  billiard-ball  moving  in  a  straight  line  to- 
wards another,  even  if  motion  in  the  second  ball  should  by 
accident  be  suggested  to  me  as  the  result  of  their  contact, 
might  I  not  conceive  hundreds  of  other  sorts  of  events  as 
well  following  from  that  particular  cause.  Might  not  both 
the  balls  remain  at  absolute  rest  ?  Might  not  the  first  ball 
return  in  a  straight  line,  or  leap  away  from  the  second  in 
any  linear  direction  ?  All  these  suppositions  are  conceiv- 
able. Why  then  should  we  give  the  preference  to  one  of 
them,  which  a  priori  is  not  more  consistent  or  conceivable 
than  the  rest  ?  No  a  priori  reasonings  will  ever  be  able 
to  show  us  an  unconditional  necessity  in  reason  for  this 
preference. 

Under  this  sensuous  and    empirical   causality    as   the  Thepossi- 
only  human  conception  of  power;   with  survival  of  the  ^ea^f 
physically   fittest   as   its   highest   biological   illustration  ;  verse  of 
with  assumed  indestructibility  of  matter  and  conservation  P°^J^ 
of  energy  for  working  hypotheses ;   and  the  speculative  iu  the  in- 
postulate  of  an  unbeginning  and  unending  succession  of  tt^0*uc" 
causal  integrations  and  disintegrations  of  a  universe  of 
molecules  in  perpetual  motion — with  all  this  postulated, 
abundant  opportunity  seems  to  be  given,  in  endless  time, 
for  infinite  variety  in  the  relations  of  the  molecules  to  one 
another,  and  for  all  sorts  of  resulting  molecular  combina- 


56 


PHILOSOPHY    OF   THEISM. 


Self-con- 
scious lives 
the  sup- 
posed ef- 
fects of 
special 
molecular 
organisa- 
tions which 
naturally 
occur  in 
the  infinite 
history  of 
molecules 
in  motion. 


tions.  These  when  they  emerge,  as  far  as  man  can  see 
before  trial,  may  each  be  a  cause  of  any  sort  of  effect. 
So,  under  this  ultimate  conception  of  the  universe,  what 
forbids  that  in  the  course  of  time  one  of  the  innumerable 
issues  of  molecular  collocation  might  be — that  actually 
presented  by  the  universe  of  individual  things  and  persons 
in  which  we  find  ourselves  living,  in  the  economy  of  which 
the  human  organism  forms  a  part,  and  into  which  each 
man  has  been  naturally  introduced.  The  universe  of 
molecules,  at  this  stage  of  its  temporal  evolution,  includes 
those  molecular  organisms  which,  while  they  last,  are 
found  in  experience  to  be  the  physical  causes  of  different 
degrees  of  life ;  in  the  more  refined  elaborations,  the 
natural  causes  of  sentient  life ;  and  in  due  time,  even  of 
life  that  is  self-conscious. 

Under  this  materialistic  conception,  the  universe  seems 
to  be  completely  emptied  of  those  alleged  striking  ex- 
amples of  divine  adaptation  of  natural  means  to  human 
ends,  in  which,  under  another  final  conception,  this  visible 
world  of  ours  once  seemed  to  abound ;  which  impressed 
ordinary  minds,  when  presented  by  Cicero  or  Paley ;  or, 
earlier  still,  by  the  Hebrew  poet,  to  whom  the  heavens 
"  declared  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament "  showed 
"  His  handywork."  Under  the  Hebrew  conception  of 
things,  "  day  unto  day  "  was  uttering  this  higher  "  speech," 
and  night  unto  night  this  higher  "knowledge."  As  the  Jew 
looks  at  it,  "  there  is  no  speech  nor  language  "  where  this 
Divine  Voice  is  not  heard  :  "  their  line  is  gone  out  through 
all  the  earth,  and  their  words  to  the  end  of  the  world." 
Under  the  molecular  final  idea  of  existence,  on  the 
contrary,  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  with  all  their  living 
and  intelligent  population,  declare  the  powers  of  in- 
numerable material  molecules,  in  the  infinity  of  their 
possible  relations  in  the  eternal  succession.  Out  of  any 
natural  cause,  any  sort  of  issue — insentient  mass  or  living 
organism,  sentient  or  self-conscious  life,  for  all  we  can 
predict  a  priori  —  is  able  to  attain  to  its  actual  but 
ephemeral  existence  as  naturally  as  any  other.  That 
the  motion  of  one  billiard-ball  should  be  the  natural 
sequence  of  contact  with  another  billiard-ball  in  motion, 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  57 

is  neither  less  nor  more  wonderful  in  itself,  than  that  an 
elaborate  special  organisation  of  molecules,  itself  the 
natural  issue  of  the  infinite  possibilities  of  the  universal 
motion,  should,  while  the  organism  lasts,  be  the  prior 
term  in  a  sequence  in  which  the  consequent  term  should 
be  a  transitory  self-conscious  life.  The  self-conscious 
being  may  seem  to  himself  to  be  continuous  in  his 
experience  of  memory ;  and  he  lasts  a  little  longer  than 
the  visible  motion  in  the  impelled  billiard-ball.  Causal 
sequence  could  in  no  case  have  been  predicted  without 
experience  of  its  constancy :  in  each  case  it  is  equally 
credible  and  certain  after  this  experience.  According 
to  the  rules  which  the  molecules  are  found  exemplify- 
ing in  their  motions,  the  particular  sort  of  colloca- 
tion of  molecules  of  which  billiard-balls  are  made  is 
the  issue  of  comparatively  few  and  simple  natural  ex- 
periments ;  the  competitive  process  of  survival  of  the 
fittest,  for  example  in  the  case  of  the  curious  human 
organism,  must  have  involved  innumerable  rejections, 
with  all  the  involved  waste  of  product,  before  man,  with 
his  intelligence,  and  his  self -regarding  and  benevolent 
dispositions,  gradually  developed.  With  this  mechanical 
difference  of  atomic  elaboration  only,  the  two  sorts  of 
natural  sequence  are  analogous — if  causality  means  only 
customary  sequence.  In  neither  is  there  any  evidence 
of  external  contrivance,  as  in  the  work  we  attribute  to 
the  design  of  a  human  artist ;  and,  moreover,  so-called 
effects  of  human  contrivance  are  themselves  only  ex- 
amples of  natural  laws,  which  issued  in  the  natural 
evolution  of  the  organism  of  the  contriver,  with  its 
correlative  conscious  life.  The  watchmaker,  when  his 
organism  is  issuing  watches,  is  really  only  an  insignifi- 
cant part  of  the  natural  process  of  world-making  and 
universal  metamorphosis  that  is  constantly  going  on. 
Natural  sequence  —  not  Purpose,  benevolent  or  male- 
volent— is  the  final  solvent  of  the  problem  of  the  uni- 
verse. Deeper  than  this  the  human  line  cannot  go,  in 
the  attempt  to  sound  the  infinite  abyss,  when  one  has  to 
explain  the  universe  under  the  postulates  of  Universal 
Materialism.      The  intrepid  scientific  inquirer,  with   his 


58 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  mate- 
rial organ- 
ism is  the 
Man,  in 
Universal 
Material- 
ism. 


Man  thus 

viewed  is 
only  a  pal- 
try part  of 
physical 
natnre. 


universe  conceived  as  ultimately  molecules  in  motion, 
who  recognises  nothing  in  metaphysical  implicates  of 
experience  that  transcends  this  hypothesis,  accepts  it  un- 
appalled,  in  the  intrepid  spirit  of  science.  He  is  ready 
to  say  that  "  things  are  what  they  are,  and  are  not  other 
things"  —  but  this  with  his  eye  turned  exclusively  to 
phenomena  of  matter  in  their  relations  of  natural 
sequence. 

Man  and  his  material  organism  are  absolutely  identified 
in  this  final  interpretation  of  the  universe,  in  which  man 
consequently  becomes  one  of  its  most  insignificant  items : 
his  spiritual  existence  is  measured  by  the  size  and  con- 
tinuance of  his  body,  which  is  himself.  The  conscious 
lives  of  men,  especially  those  who  have  been  evolved  in 
this  advanced  era  of  the  universal  history,  are  the  most 
remarkable  manifestations  of  psychical  phenomena  that 
come  within  man's  experience ;  but  even  this  sort  is 
invariably  embodied :  our  only  example  of  self-conscious 
life  is  the  human  organism,  in  its  little  more  than  momen- 
tary existence.  With  a  human  organism,  naturally  given, 
the  spiritual  life  of  man  mysteriously  springs  forth,  "  like 
the  appearance  of  the  genius  when  Aladdin  rubbed  his 
lamp  in  the  Eastern  story,"  or  like  any  other  natural  fact 
which  appears  in  its  due  season. 

It  is  thus  that  man  is  reduced  from  the  fancied  height 
of  a  moral  agent,  who,  so  far  as  such,  must  be  indepen- 
dent of  physical  law,  to  the  extent  of  his  moral  responsi- 
bility :  he  is  identified  with  those  aggregates  of  atoms  in 
the  natural  evolution,  which  differ  from  the  lifeless  things 
of  inorganic  nature  only  in  the  fact  of  their  organic  con- 
nection with  pleasurable  or  painful  feeling,  and  their 
other  automatic  conscious  states,  manifested  in  the  course 
of  molecular  changes  of  which  the  organism  and  its  sur- 
roundings are  the  subjects  —  invisible  states  as  wholly 
automatic,  or  dependent  on  molecular  motions,  as  the 
visible  changes  in  the  organisms  themselves,  "Man, 
physical,  intellectual,  moral,"  we  are  told,  "  is  as  much  a 
part  of  nature,  as  purely  a  product  of  the  cosmic  process, 
as  the  humblest  weed."  Therefore,  men  at  their  best 
present  only  this  ephemeral  consciousness,  which  emerges 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  59 

from  the  always  indifferent,  and  often  cruel,  natural 
mechanism,  within  which — without  their  own  leave — they 
find  themselves  inextricably  involved.  Inconsolatory  to 
the  individual  as  this  discovery  of  what  he  is,  and  the 
world  in  which  he  is,  may  be,  it  is  inexhaustible  in 
resources  of  physical  explanation.  It  explains,  as  a 
physical  consequence  of  relations  among  molecules  which 
occur  in  the  course  of  their  history,  man's  illusion  that 
he  can  ever  be  morally  free  from  natural  law,  and  re- 
sponsible for  what  he  does.  For  the  illusion  is  found  in 
invariable  sequence  to  certain  organic  states,  which  are 
themselves  the  issue  of  innumerable  molecular  motions 
and  collocations  that  have  occurred  in  the  history  of  the 
material  universe.  The  sufferings  through  which  sentient 
beings  on  this  planet  pass,  and  the  sins  with  which  men 
are  charged,  are  in  this  way  seen  in  their  infinite  insig- 
nificance, as  only  phenomena  in  the  succession  of  natural 
changes  among  the  atoms  which  for  ever  occupy  the  im- 
mensity of  space  :  they  are  not  more  significant  ultimately 
than  the  pains  or  pleasures  of  insects  too  minute  to  be 
seen  by  the  microscope  in  the  summer  sunshine  now  seem 
to  us.  Good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong,  merit  and  demerit, 
self-satisfaction  and  remorse,  are  scientifically  discovered 
to  be  words  which  have  acquired  their  misleading  mean- 
ing at  an  inferior  era  in  this  world's  history ;  through 
man's  natural  ignorance  at  the  time,  that  he  is  only  an 
item  in  the  unbeginning  and  unending  succession  of 
molecular  changes,  which  Universal  Materialism  assumes 
to  be  finally  co-extensive  with  reality. 

Yet,  at  another  point  of  view — if  anything  might  be  Deification 
the  cause  of  anything,  because  it  may  conceivably  be  its  of  matter, 
predecessor  —  might  one  not  attribute  to  the  molecules 
into  which  the  universe  is  resolved  all  the  attributes  of 
man,  and  even  those  that  are  attributed  to  God?  And 
if  Deity  may  be  thus  latent  in  the  molecular  universe, 
is  it  more  than  a  question  of  names  —  as  between  this 
omnipotent  and  omniscient  Matter,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  God  of  pantheism,  or  even  of  theism,  on  the  other. 
Where  is  the  universal  materialist  to  stop  in  what  he 


60 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  trans- 
itory il- 
lusion of 
Morality. 


The  trans- 
itory illu- 
sion called 
Reason. 


attributes  to  Matter,  if  he  may  attribute  to  it  the  rational 
acts  and  moral  experience  of  a  human  body  ?  One  asks 
in  reply,  what  the  materialist  who  argues  thus  means  by 
Matter  ?     It  must  mean  more  than  molecular  motion. 

But  the  molecularly  constituted  "  deity "  of  Universal 
Materialism  has,  it  seems,  caused,  at  one  stage  in  the  de- 
velopment of  man,  what   are   discovered  to  be  illusions 

under  later  evolved  conceptions  to  which  the  laws  of 

nature  are  now  automatically  conducting  scientific  men 

conceptions,  too,  which   may  in   their  turn  be  all  as 

naturally  dissolved,  later  on  in  the  progressive  evolution. 
Amongst  those  illusory  natural  products  may  hereafter 
come  to  be  included  the  moral  ideas  which  presuppose  the 
importance  of  the  race  of  man,  as  compared,  say,  with  a 
race  of  animalcules,  and  the  ethical  presuppositions  from 
which  men  infer  the  need  for  individual  sacrifice  on  be- 
half of  the  race,  for  the  sake  of  a  longer  survival  of  the 
whole.     Conscience  begins  to  appear  as  an  artificial  device 
for  the  prolongation  of  the  race  :  it  was  naturally  generated 
at  that  inferior  stage  in  the  history  of  the  molecules  at 
which  human  organisms  were  naturally  induced  to  claim 
a  unique  dignity  and  importance.     But  scientific  disinter- 
estedness —  itself   a    physical   sequence,    on    occasion    of 
certain  molecular  motions— comes  afterwards  to  see  that 
the  man  and  the  reptile  are  alike  insignificant,  being  both 
the  transitory  outcome  of  universal  physical  law.     To  call 
an  agent  in  a   distinctive   sense  "moral"  or  "spiritual," 
is  to   apply  a  misleading   predicate;    for  the  "agency" 
can   be    only    the   physical   law   under  which    a   certain 
condition  of  the  human  brain  is  constantly  accompanied 
by  the  delusion   that  love  and  will  and  conscience  are 
somehow  superior  to  brain,  or  to  the  molecules  on  which 
all  ultimately  depends.     For  it  is  a  natural  law  that,  at  a 
certain  stage  in  its  evolution,  the  organism  which  consti- 
tutes man  becomes  what  we  call  ethical,  and  subject  to 
the  delusion  that  man  is  free  to  struggle  against  evil. 

But  more  than  dissolution  of  morality  would  follow 
from  premisses  which  yield  a  wholly  molecular  solution 
of  the  problem  of  self-conscious  life  in  a  molecular  uni- 
verse ;_if  indeed  any  conclusion  about  anything  could  be 


UNIVERSAL    MATERIALISM.  61 

consistently  drawn  in  such  a  universe.  For  reason  itself 
— reason  to  which  science  is  wont  to  appeal  as  the  supreme 
tribunal  —  is  transformed  into  one  of  the  innumerable 
transitory  issues  of  purposeless  organic  conditions.  In- 
telligence, with  science  as  its  product,  and  conscience, 
with  morality  as  its  product,  come  to  be  conceived  as 
only  transitory  natural  outcomes  of  molecular  conditions. 
The  thinking  and  observing  processes  themselves — those 
processes  through  which  the  materialist  finds  that  con- 
scious mind,  in  all  its  states,  is  virtually  molecules  in 
motion — are  only  a  part  of  the  molecular  process.  Human 
intelligence  and  human  conscience  are  only  modes  of  the 
ephemeral  phenomena  to  which  the  molecular  universe,  in 
its  eternal  tlux  of  molecules  and  a^o-resrates  of  molecules, 

CO         o  ' 

is  supposed  to  be  giving  birth,  at  different  stages  in  the 
course  of  its  evolution.  Its  verified  inferences,  as  well  as 
its  unproved  hypotheses,  are  all  alike  transitory  illusions ; 
— if  we  are  not  allowed  to  presuppose  in  the  primary  data 
more  than  molecules  that  seem  under  certain  conditions 
to  transform  themselves  into  self-conscious  life.  And 
thus  Monism,  at  least  in  the  form  of  Universal  Material- 
ism, itself  disappears,  along  with  conscious  intelligence, 
in  the  abyss  of  Universal  Nescience. 

Can  we  accept,  as  a  solution  of  the  universe,  and  of  man  Are  science 
as  a  part  of  it,  this,  which  asks  us  habitually  to  think  of  ^ife^tli 
the  whole  as  finally  purposeless  molecular  aggregation  and  issues  of 
motion,  wherein  intelligence  and  conscience   are  transi-  lnojt;cuiar 
tory  issues,  but  which,  in  the  final  darkness  of  Universal 
Materialism,  can,  while  they  last,  put  in  no  claim  to  deter- 
mine  the   interpretation    of   the  whole  ?      Can   what   is 
commonly  meant  by  Matter  consistently  claim  this  final 
universality  and   supremacy  ?      We  shall  consider  what 
invisible  consciousness  has  to  say  for  itself,  when  thus 
confronted,  in  this  remote  corner,  by  a  universe  of  only 
molecules  and  molecular  sequences. 


62 


LECTURE    II. 


PANEGOISM. 


The  exag-  Human  organisms  and  their  self-conscious  life  appear,  at 
geration  of  tne  ^0{n^  0f  view  0f  atomism  or  moleculism,  to  be  only 
versai  Ma-  part,  and  a  very  insignificant  part,  of  the  transitory 
terialist.  natural  issue  of  the  universe  of  molecules  in  motion. 
They  emerge  for  a  time  in  a  remote  and  petty  corner 
of  immensity,  under  those  particular  physical  conditions 
which  are  found  to  give  rise  to  a  conscious  organism. 
Mind  —  matter  transformed  into  consciousness,  according 
to  materialism — is  one  among  innumerable  other  trans- 
formations which  molecules  temporarily  undergo ;  not  in 
itself  more  significant  than  any  other  of  the  many  sorts 
of  quantitative  difference,  in  size,  shape,  or  arrangement, 
of  molecules  and  molecular  masses,  on  which  conscious 
life,  as  well  as  all  the  other  qualities  of  things,  are,  on 
this  conception  of  existence,  assumed  to  depend.  Simi- 
larly as  fire  differs  from  water,  and  water  from  gold,  on 
account  of  supposed  differences  in  the  size,  shape,  motion, 
and  consistency  of  their  respective  constituent  molecules, 
— differences  which  might  be  described  with  precision  if 
one  could  construct  microscopes  powerful  enough  to  re- 
veal them,  —  so,  on  the  same  condition,  those  special 
characteristics  of  molecular  organisation  which  give  rise 
to  consciousness,  when  they  happen  to  become  actual, 
might  in  like  manner  be  observed  in  detail.  This  is 
the  universe  of  the  materialist,  as  it  rises  in  imagina- 
tion, when  the  datum  of  a  material  world  is  taken  by 
philosophy  as  the  one  final  datum. 


PANEGOISM.  6  3 

But  has  the  percipient  and  self-conscious  life  by  which  What  of 
man  is   characterised,  with  its  scientific  and  moral  out-  the  eg0  • 
come,  which    has   started    up   in    this   remote   planetary 
corner  of   the  material   world,  nothing   more    than    this 
to  say  for  itself? 

The  invisible  self-conscious  Ego  does  not  so  soon  force  The  exag- 
itself  upon  attention  as  the  boundless  and  endless  world  f^fix-st  °f 
of  outward  things  presented  to  the  senses  does.     At  least  postulate. 
the  Ego  does  not  obtrude  itself  upon  the  unreflecting  as  fctcur+h 
exclusively  entitled  to  be  called  real.     Its  assumed  real- that  of  the 
ity  seems  instead  to  resolve  into  transitory  modes  of  the  second« 
solid  and  extended   organisms   presented  to   the   senses, 
lieflection   upon   conscious    life   follows    in    the   wake   of 
spontaneous  consciousness  ;  for  thought  must  have  appro- 
priate experience,  in  the  form  of  spiritual  states  already 
passed  through,  before  it  begins  to  express  spiritual  life 
in  terms  of  science,  or  to  see  the  immense  philosophical 
significance  of  living  Mind. 

"The  baby  new  to  earth  and  sky. 

What  time  his  tender  palm  is  prest 
Against  the  circle  of  the  breast, 
Has  never  thought  that  this  is  '  I.' 

But  as  he  grows,  he  gathers  much, 

And  learns  the  use  of  '  1 5  and  '  me, 

And  finds  I  am  not  what  I  see, 
And  other  than  the  things  I  touch  ; 

So  rounds  he  to  a  separate  mind, 

From  whence  clear  memory  may  begin." 

Or  again — 

"  Dark  is  the  world  to  thee  :  thyself  art  the  reason  why  ; 
For  is  He  not  all,  but  thou,  that  has  power  to  feel  '  I  am  I  ? ' " 

Accordingly  outward  things  are  apt  to  be  exaggerated  The  out- 
into  the  one  final  form  of  existence  sooner  than  the  in-  fo^Jf1118" 
dividual  and  invisible  ego.     In  the  early  stages  of  man's  into  the 
history  he  is  more  ready  to  suppose  that  consciousness  can  linv:ui1- 
be  refunded  into  the  universe  of  outward  things,  than  that 
the  universe  of  outward  things  can  be  refunded  into  his 


64  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

own  self-conscious  perceptions.  We  are  all  in  our  childish 
years  more  or  less  materialists.  And  we  find  the  material- 
ist point  of  view  the  favourite  one  in  the  childhood  of  the 
race  of  man.  In  early  Hellenic  speculation  Socrates 
awoke  the  sense  of  individuality  and  personality.  But 
it  was  with  the  rise  of  Christianity  that  the  idea  of  the 
individual  person  unfolded  into  moral  distinctness.  The 
Christian  Fathers  found  something  in  a  self-conscious 
person  that  was  inadequately  expressed  in  the  Hellenic 
and  Eoman  thought  of  the  pre-Christian  world.  "  Great 
is  the  revelation  given  in  memory,"  one  finds  Augustine 
exclaiming  in  his  'Confessions,' — "great  is  memory,  in 
all  its  depth  and  manifold  intensity;  the  strange  reality 
revealed  in  it  is  my  mind  ;  and  my  mind  is  myself.  Fear 
and  amazement  overcome  me  when  I  think  of  this.  Yet 
men  go  abroad  to  gaze  upon  mountains  and  waves,  broad 
rivers,  wide  oceans,  and  the  courses  of  the  stars,  and  over- 
look themselves,  the  crowning  wonder."  In  the  thousand 
years  after  Augustine  one  finds  many  utterances  in  har- 
mony with  this.  And  the  supreme  significance  of  the  Ego 
survived  the  modern  reaction  against  scholastic  thought. 
In  the  new  conceptions  of  the  universe  and  the  ultimate 
meaning  of  life  which  struggled  into  existence  in  the 
mind  of  Descartes,  the  watchword  was — Cogito  ergo  sum : 
Ego  sum  cogitans.  Ego  was  the  one  essential  fact.^  Not 
atoms  but  ego  was  taken  as  the  primary  element  in  the 
universe.  His  own  invisible  self  is  what  is  nearest  to 
each  person,  and  his  world  is  the  world  which  depends 
upon  his  consciousness.  This  was  the  starting-point  or 
birth  of  the  new  philosophic  spirit,  which  so  strenuously 
asserted  itself  in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  more  this 
invisible  fact  is  pondered,  the  more  one  seems  to  see  the 
dependence  of  the  universe  on  it.  So  the  Ego— conscious 
and  percipient  —  comes  by  degrees  to  absorb  outward 
things,  converting  an  otherwise  illusory  outwardness  into 
real  inwardness.  Like  Actseon,  changed  into  the  stag, 
and  then  torn  to  pieces  by  his  hounds  on  Mount  Cithaeron, 
the  once  too  obtrusive  world  of  molecules  is  at  last  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  world  of  one's  own  conscious  life  or  per- 
sonality. 


PANEGOISM.  65 

When  one  takes  his  own  living  consciousness,  recog-  Conscioi 
nised  as  the  universe  of  his  experience,  for  the  philosophi-  y%lhef 
cal  point  of  view — instead  of  quantities  of  molecules  in  reality. 
space,  and  molecular  changes  in  time  —  the  final  con- 
ception of  the  universe  undergoes  a  radical  transforma- 
tion ;  and  the  new  conception  of  reality  seems  deeper  and 
truer  than  the  old  one.  Conscious  life  in  me — conscious 
life  wherever  it  arises — no  longer  looks  like  an  ephemeral 
and  insignificant  accident,  that  somehow,  through  a  con- 
course of  molecules,  has  happened  to  make  its  appearance 
on  this  planet  in  this  era  of  its  history.  I  seem  now  un- 
able to  suppose  that  percipient  conscious  life  in  me,  and  in 
other  possible  egos,  might  all  cease  for  ever,  and  yet  that, 
after  its  extinction,  the  aggregates  of  molecules  in  their 
molecular  masses,  with  all  their  properties,  might  continue 
to  exist  as  they  did  before  its  extinction.  Percipient 
life  seems  now  to  be  able  to  say  for  itself,  that  it  is  the 
one  paramount  necessity — the  one  indispensable  condition 
— of  reality,  and  of  the  changes  and  sequences  that  oc- 
cur in  what  is  really.  The  introduction  of  active  and  per- 
cipient consciousness  into  existence  looks  like  the  intro- 
duction of  light  into  a  dark  room,  that  is  in  consequence 
distinguished  by  the  beauty  and  variety  which  it  presents. 
In  the  darkness  the  forms  and  colours  that  emerge  were 
virtually  unreal.  The  brilliant  spectacle  becomes  real 
only  when  the  lamp  is  carried  into  the  dark  chamber.  If 
light  had  never  existed,  or  if  it  were  now  to  be  suddenly 
and  for  ever  annihilated  throughout  the  universe,  the  vis- 
ible glories  of  earth  and  sky,  as  well  as  of  the  darkened 
room,  would  all  cease  to  be  real :  and  if  light  had  never 
existed,  they  would  never  have  existed,  as  we  now  see 
them  ;  for  they  were  realised  through  the  command,  "  Let 
there  be  light."  So  with  the  material  world  all  realised 
through  the  percipient  ego,  which  thus  seems  to  show  itself 
the  unit  of  the  universe.  "  Let  there  be  a  percipient  ego," 
and  all  becomes  the  reality  that  we  perceive.  The  reflec- 
tive thinker  tries  in  vain  to  realise  the  material  world 
—  the  universe  of  molecules  and  their  a£o-reo;ates  — 
after  all  conscious  life  has  been  withdrawn  from  the 
universe. 


66 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  fate  of 
an  unper- 
ceived 
material 
world. 


Consider  what  would  become  of  the  world  that  is  re- 
vealed in  vision  and  touch — the  world  which  is  the  object 
of  daily  interest  to  every  human  being  —  which  is  the 
means,  when  scientifically  interpreted,  of*  advancing  man's 
comfort,  and  on  which  society  and  civilisation  depend  ; — 
what  would  become  of  this  solid  and  expanded  world — 
of  all  the  physical  and  natural  sciences  too,  and  even  of 
materialism  itself  as  the  living  philosophy  of  a  conscious 
"being — if  the  Ego  were  withdrawn,  and  conscious  reason 
were  for  ever  extinct. 


Intellec- 
tual 
suicide. 


For  one  thing,  all  intelligible  experience  of  outward 
things,  including  the  philosophy  which  teaches  that  exist- 
ence is  all  molecular,  itself  depends  on  what  is  inward. 
All  science  is  dependent  on  conscious  life,  which,  as  felt, 
is  not  a  visible  molecule  or  mass  of  molecules.  The 
perceptions  and  coherent  inferences,  of  which  living  know- 
ledge of  external  things  consists,  are  indispensable  even 
for  "the  construction  of  the  universal  materialism  in  which 
man  looks  so  insignificant.  But  for  conscious  life  in  this 
little  corner  of  the  universe,  or  elsewhere,  the  whole 
world  of  outward  things  would  be  for  ever  unrealised.  If 
the  persons  who  are  percipient  of  the  things  that  move  in 
space,  and  who  by  reasoning  combined  with  observation 
discover  natural  laws,  are  found,  in  the  progress  of  their 
own  discoveries,  to  be  themselves,  in  the  last  resort,  only 
transitory  issues  of  unintelligent  and  unintelligible  Matter, 
this  materialistic  philosophy  of  theirs  must,  like  all  that 
depends  upon  faculties  so  produced,  be  unworthy  of  trust. 
Human  science  is  discredited  in  the  degradation  of  the 
human  beings  in  whom  it  is  converted  into  an  accident 
of  the  universal  flux.  For  sciences  and  philosophy  are 
then  only  accidents  in  the  history  of  human  organisms, 
which,  in  this  era  of  molecular  evolution,  happen  to  have 
been  formed  on  this  little  planet.  The  supposed  discovery 
that  the  whole  is  ultimately  only  continuous  mechanical 
motion  of  atoms,  without  moral  guarantee  in  a  divine 
natural  order,  discredits  every  pretended  discovery.  Un- 
less there  is  that  in  the  universe  which  is  more  than 
evolution   of    matter    into   organisms  —  when    "matter" 


PANEGOISM.  67 

means  only  phenomena  as  presented  in  sense  —  there 
can  be  no  valid  science,  no  valid  materialist  philosophy. 
The  testimony  given  by  a  human  adventurer  to  the  fact 
that  he  has  been  cast  up  inexplicably,  in  a  succession  of 
the  molecular  changes  which  are  the  only  ultimate  reality, 
and  who  thinks  that  he  sees  scientifically  that  all  con- 
scious life  must  sooner  or  later  disappear,  is  testimony 
which,  under  such  conditions,  can  neither  be  vindicated 
nor  refuted.  The  issue  is  a  literally  unutterable  scepticism 
about  everything.  The  key  which  pretended  to  open  the 
secret  of  reality  has  been  taken  away  in  the  very  act  of 
using  it.     Universal  Materialism  is  intellectual  suicide. 

Larger  and  deeper  human  experience  seems  to  involve  A  con- 
a  continual   protest  against   this.      The  supposition   that  Bcio™ eg0 
intelligence  is  essentially  molecular  is   found  to   be  in-  than  a 
adequate,  if  not  self-contradictory,  philosophy.     Modern  u»iverse 
science  of  outward  things,  of  which  man  is  justly  proud,  scions 
as  among  the  most  signal  of  his  conquests,  becomes  only  tnings. 
one   among   innumerable    other    sorts   of   accidental  and 
temporary  modification  of  atomic  movement ;  culminating 
in  the  discovery  of  the  irrelevancy  and  insignificance  of 
the  conscious  reason  that  is  the  apparent  instrument  of 
the  discoveries.    Eealisation,  in  the  form  of  living  thought, 
of  the  mechanical  law  of  gravitation,  or  of  the  still  more 
comprehensive  biological  law  of  natural  evolution  —  in- 
cluding evolution  of  those  scientific  discoveries  themselves 
— surely  implies,  in  the  final  constitution  of  the  universe, 
something  deeper  than  an  originally  unconscious  and  acci- 
dental concurrence  of  atoms.     We  are  reminded  of  the 
sentiment  of  Pascal.    Physically,  man  is  a  petty  transitory 
organism.     When  we  measure  its  size  and  duration,  and 
compare  this  with  the  Immensities  and  the  Eternities, 
man   is   insignificant   indeed.      A   vapour,  or  a  drop   of 
water,  is  found  enough  to  compass  his  destruction.     Yet 
even  if  the  illimitable  material  world  were  to  employ  for 
the  destruction  of  men  all  the  molecular  forces  that  are 
supposed  to  belong  to  its  atoms,  there  is  still  that  in  man 
which  is  more  noble  than  the  matter  by  which  the  human 
organisms  would  be  destroyed,  greater,  too,  than  the  dis- 
solved organism.     For  the  man  would  be  conscious  of  his 


68 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


What  do 
we  meau 
when  we 
affirm  the 
real  exist- 
ence of 
matter  or 
molecules  ? 


fate ;  while  the  material  universe  would  be  unconscious  of 
its  victory.  The  true  office  and  standing  of  man  in  the 
universe  is  to  be  read,  not  in  the  quantity  of  space  that  his 
body  is  seen  to  fill;  nor  in  the  period  of  time  during  which 
the  physical  evolution  of  which  his  body  is  the  ephemeral 
issue  has  been  going  on — but  in  the  invisible  life,  actively 
percipient  and  self-conscious,  which  emerges.  Invisible 
egos  are  therefore  superior  to  aggregates  of  molecules, 
however  vast  in  size.  The  Ego  is  greater  than  the  whole 
material  world,  when  it  is  abstracted  from  all  percipient 
life:  it  is  greater  than  all  the  objects  that  can  be  pre- 
sented to  the  senses  ;  because  the  ego  is  conscious  and 
active,  while  things  presented  to  sense  are  known  only 
as  powerless  and  unconscious  masses. 

The  Panegoist,  in  short,  raises  a  question  which  Univer- 
sal Materialism  overlooks.  He  asks  what  the  word  matter 
ultimately  means,  when  the  word  is  rightly  used.  What 
is  meant  by  the  real  existence  of  a  molecule,  or  an  aggre- 
gate of  molecules,  or  by  the  reality  of  things  in  motion  ? 
What  is  meant  by  the  outwardness  of  a  thing,  or  the 
external  existence  of  a  thing?  By  questions  like  these 
we  bring  into  light  the  deity  of  materialism.  We  begin 
to  see  that  there  is  more  than  we  had  supposed  in  per- 
ception of  things.  There  is  here  a  chasm,  which  the 
history  of  philosophical  inquiry  suggests  the  difficulty  of 
bridging,— a  chasm  between  living  perceptions,  which  suc- 
ceed one  another  in  the  absolute  privacy  of  one's  own 
conscious  life,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  solid  and  extended 
things,  molecules  and  masses  of  molecules — crudely  sup- 
posed to  exist  as  one  now  sees  them  and  touches  them, 
whether  or  not  there  exists  in  the  universe  any  percipient 
who  is  seeing  or  touching.  The  things  called  "  outward," 
and  supposed  to  be  independent  of  all  percipient  life,  in 
the  absence  of  all  percipients  lose  their  qualities ;  for  these 
are  no  longer  realised  by  the  living  factor  of  reality.  They 
disappear  as  empty  abstractions,  when  all  percipient  life  is 
withdrawn  ;  so  that  one  is  led  to  ask  whether  an  aggregate 
of  molecules,  or  even  a  single  molecule,  could  continue  to 
exist  in  the  way  it  now  appears  to  our  senses  to  do,  after 
the  extinction  of  all  life  in  the  universe, 


PANEGOISM.  69 

Again.     When  one  speaks  of  external  things,  he  must  The  human 
include  among  them  the  minute  organism  which  he  calls  ^Sd  the 
his  own   body  —  that  which,  for  the  materialist,  is  the  self-con- 
whole  man.     It  is  an  object  the  local  insignificance  of  J^JJSC 
which,  among  the  other  contents  of  space  and  duration,  part  of  the 
signifies  to  a  materialistic  imagination  the  insignificance  ^J^jJ 
of  man,  as  an  item  in  the  universe.     For  one's  own  body  sense. 
is  a  part  of  the  material  world.     Even  though  it  is  called 
"  living  matter,"  it  is  still,  like  all  other  space-occupying 
things,  external    to    the    private    self    of    consciousness. 
When  it  is  seen  in  this  light,  the  thought  occurs  that  no 
sufficient  reason  can  be  produced  to  show  that  conscious 
life  must  be  embodied  life,  although  ours  is  embodied. 
Is  that  fact  a  reason  which  forbids  the  supposition  that 
I  may  pass  through  all  the  different  sorts  of  sentient  or 
mental  experience  of  which  I  have  been  conscious  since  I 
was  born,  without  being  embodied  ?     Why  may  I  not  have 
the  mental  experience    called   seeing,  or  that  other  sort 
called  touching,  without  my  present  visual  and  tactual 
organs,  or  even  without  an  organism  of  gross  molecular 
matter?     Our  senses,  too,  might  conceivably  have  been 
other  than  they  are — more  numerous,  and  thus  present- 
ing outward  things  clothed  in  qualities  now  absolutely 
unimaginable  by  man;  or  less  numerous,  in  which  case 
much  that  normally  constituted  men  can  now  perceive 
and  imagine  would  be  unimaginable.     Of  this  last  we 
have  examples  in  human  beings  who  are  born  blind,  and 
to  whom  words  expressive  of  visual  ideas  to  us  who  see 
are  meaningless.     For  aught  we  know,  there  may  be  per- 
cipient beings  in  some  other  corner  of  the  universe  who 
are  each  destitute  of  all  our  external  senses,  and  endowed 
with  five  or   five  hundred    other    sorts    of    senses,  each 
different  in  kind  from  any  of  ours.     If  so,  what  means 
"  matter "  in  their  perception   and  conception  of  it  ?     It 
can  have  none  of  the  qualities  which  we  refer  to  the 
things  we  call  outward ;  and  it  must  have  five,  or  five 
hundred,  sorts  of  properties,  all  of  which  a  human  being 
would  be  as  unable  to  imagine  as  the  born-blind  man  is 
to  imagine  scarlet — a  quality  which  Locke's  blind  friend 
pictured  as  something  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet. 


70  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

The  pro-  But  we   must  return   from   conjectures  to   facts.      It 

nSterdis-  ^as  been  customary  to  distinguish  the  properties  of  bodies 
tinguished  as  of  two  sorts  —  those,  which  are  essential  to  body, 
as  primary  deprived  of  which  it  would  not  be  named  matter ;  and 
tative,  and  those,  on  the  other  hand,  which  might  disappear  with- 
secondary  ou^  its  ceasing  to  be  called  matter.  The  first  sort  are 
orimpu  e  '  primary  properties  of  matter;  the  others  are  called 
secondary  properties.  In  their  primary  or  essential  at- 
tributes, bodies  —  whether  large  or  small  —  are  space- 
occupying  :  they  are  movable  solids :  they  can  be  for- 
mulated mechanically,  in  terms  of  mathematical  quan- 
tity. The  secondary  properties,  again,  are  those  which 
invest  bodies  with  their  chief  human  interest.  They  are 
those  in  virtue  of  which  they  are  of  practical  importance 
to  man — their  hardness  or  softness,  their  heat  or  cold, 
their  colours,  sounds,  odours,  and  tastes — all  which,  as 
distinguished  from  the  former  sort,  are  especially  called 
qualities;  —  for  the  others  are  quantities  rather  than 
qualities.  In  fact,  on  the  molecular  final  conception  of 
existence,  the  original  atoms  were  supposed  to  be  quanti- 
ties only,  without  qualitative  differences ;  and  the  in- 
numerable differences  which  we  observe  in  the  secondary 
qualities  commonly  imputed  to  external  things  were  re- 
ferred to  quantitative  differences  too  minute  to  be  seen, — 
differences  in  the  shape,  size,  position,  and  motions  of 
their  constituent  molecules.  Democritus,  the  representa- 
tive of  early  materialism,  argues  that  all  the  qualitative 
differences  in  external  things  are  caused  by  —  i.e.,  are 
physically  dependent  on  —  their  quantitative  molecular 
differences.  Water,  for  instance,  presents  qualities  differ- 
ent from  iron,  because  its  constituent  molecules  are  round 
and  smooth,  and  do  not  fit  into  one  another;  those  of 
iron,  on  the  contrary,  are  jagged,  uneven,  and  densely 
aggregated.  This  conjecture  of  Democritus  reappears  in 
Descartes  and  Locke ;  with  the  cautious  qualification  in 
the  case  of  Locke — that  if  the  qualities  imputed  to  out- 
ward things  are  not  differenced  by  their  dependence,  on 
quantitative  relations  of  their  constituent  molecules,  they 
must  at  last  depend  upon  something  more  mysterious. 
Now,  looking  in  the  first  place  only  at  the  secondary 


PANEG01NM.  VI 

properties  of  the  material  world,  it  is  obvious  that  they  Obvious 
depend  upon  sentient  and  percipient  life.  We  cannot  o|^gdence 
even  imagine  taste  or  smell  existing  externally,  in  the  secondary 
absence  of  all  sentient  intelligence,  except  by  reading  ^pon^Lr- 
them  in  terms  of  the  non-resembling  molecules  and  molec-  cipient. 
ular  motions  of  which  they  are  supposed  to  be  the  cor- 
relatives. The  atoms  of  which  fire  is  composed  have 
themselves  no  sensation  of  heat,  like  that  which  I  have 
when  I  approach  fire.  But  if  the  mental  sensation  is 
abstracted,  what  remains  that  is  at  all  imaginable,  to  con- 
stitute the  meaning  of  the  word  heat,  except  motion 
among  aggregates  of  molecules  ?  Heat  is  necessarily  read 
in  terms  of  motion,  when  it  is  imagined  as  something  ex- 
ternal. When  I  cease  to  read  it  in  terms  of  felt  sensation 
of  heat,  I  must  read  it,  if  I  read  it  at  all,  in  terms  of  molec- 
ular motion.  An  orange  becomes  virtually  colourless  in 
the  dark,  and  must  lose  odour  and  taste,  when  sensuous 
perception  ceases :  the  residuary  issue  is  a  mass  of  col- 
ourless, inodorous,  tasteless  molecules.  Analysis  of  the 
properties  of  bodies  in  this  way  obliges  us  to  strip  the 
material  world  of  all  its  secondary  and  interesting  qual- 
ities ; — except  so  far  as  they  can  be  translated,  in  terms  of 
the  atomic  motions  of  which  they  are  the  correlatives. 
And  physical  science  has  not  discovered  all  the  varieties 
of  molecular  motion  which,  on  the  hypothesis  of  molecular 
correlation,  correspond,  under  natural  law,  to  the  innumer- 
able varieties  of  secondary  qualities. 

But  the  subordination  of  the  world  to  the  percipient  Depen- 
ego,  it  may  be  argued  at  the  point  of  view  of  Panegoism,  ^^se 
does  not  stop  here.     The  process  is  not  arrested  when  it  of  solid 
has  stripped  molecules  and  their  aggregates   of  all  that  JJJJgjjJj^ 
gives  them  human  interest.      It  may  be  further  argued  qualities, 
that  the  aggregates  of  molecules,  and  the  molecules  them-  onper- 
selves,  become  empty  inconceivable  abstractions,  after  they  milui. 
have  been  stripped  of  their  interesting  qualities,  and  are 
left  to  exist  in  an  unresistant,  colourless,  silent,  inodorous, 
and  tasteless  condition,  neither   cold   nor  hot.     For  the 
chief  primary  property  of  things — occupancy  of  space — 
is  itself  dependent  upon  sensations  or  feelings — with  which 
it  is  blended  so  inextricably  that  we  cannot  imagine  a 


72 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Molecules 
thus  be- 
come emp- 
ty abstrac- 
tions, and 
things  re- 
solve into 
feelings. 


colourless  mass  of  extended  matter.  An  extended  thing 
without  any  secondary  qualities  cannot  be  imagined  as  an 
outward  or  material  thing  at  all.  Strip  things  of  all 
the  qualities  which  really  depend  upon  a  percipient,  and 
after  that  no  perceptible  qualities  remain.  But  this 
subtraction  of  all  their  properties  is  practically  the  sub- 
traction of  matter ;  therefore  matter  cannot  have  real 
existence  independently  of  all  percipient  life.  At  the 
most,  only  an  unqualified  and  unqualified  something  re- 
mains, of  which  nothing  can  be  either  affirmed  or  denied, 
— an  empty  negation,  not  worth  taking  into  account  as 
a  primary  datum. 

If  all  the  properties  of  material  things  are  in  this 
way  proved  to  be  dependent  upon  living  perception,  the 
common  but  confused  supposition  that  some  of  them  exist 
externally — meaning  by  that  independently  of  all  percipi- 
ent life,  may  be  argued  by  the  extreme  Panegoist  to  be 
contrary  to  reason.  Matter  is  realised,  or  brought  into 
actual  existence,  by  the  sentient  ego,  through  whose  felt 
experience  it  becomes  what  we  find  it  to  be.  The  uni- 
verse, the  Panegoist  argues,  cannot  be  finally  a  universe 
of  independent  molecules:  it  is  finally  the  independent 
ego ; — with  molecules,  aggregates  of  molecules,  and  their 
qualities,  all  sustained  in  the  conscious  experience  of  the 
ego.  Accordingly,  one  who  looks  upon  the  universe  at 
the  panegoistic  point  of  view  sees  in  the  whole  material 
world  —  stars,  their  planets,  this  planet  with  all  its 
visible  and  tangible  contents,  including  our  own  bodies — 
only  inward  experiences,  proceeding  in  an  established 
order  which  enables  us  to  foresee  other  inward  experi- 
ences still  future, — all  which  orderly  universe  within  the 
mind  would  necessarily  become  extinct  with  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  percipient  life  of  the  ego,  on  which  the  whole  is 
practically  suspended.  Our  final  conception  of  the  world, 
and  of  what  reality  means,  is  even  more  deeply  transformed 
in  this  intrepid  Panegoism,  than  was  the  old-fashioned  an- 
thropocentric  conception  by  the  modern  discoveries  of  the 
astronomer.  Instead  of  an  external  flux  of  variously 
qualified  things,  in  orderly  motion  in  space,  the  universe 
becomes  a  flux  of  orderly  ideas  and  feelings,  in  the  history 


PANEGOISM.  73 

of  my  conscious  ego.  In  this  transformation  scene  my 
conscious  life  is  the  final  supposition  —  not  the  starry 
heaven,  with  its  molecular  occupants,  in  the  immensity 
of  an  independent  space.  Nothing  now  appears  in  the 
universe  of  existence  but  conscious  mind;  and  the  only 
mind  of  which  I  am  conscious  is  my  own. 

At  this  panegoistical  point  of  view,  a  transformation  Thecon- 
in  the  materialist  ideas  of  causality  and  power  is  like-  ^^ 
wise  going  on.  For  the  Ego  is  found  on  reflection  to  outward 
be  a  power,  more  deeply  and  truly  than  molecules,  or  J^gf also 
aggregates  of  molecules,  are  perceived  to  be  powers.  In  formed  in 
recognising  one's  self  as  a  moral  agent,  one  finds  that  he  Panegoism. 
is  obliged  to  acknowledge  more  in  moral  agency  than  sense 
reveals  in  the  "agency"  of  molecules  and  their  masses. 
In  outward  nature,  per  se,  all  that  is  presented  is  phe- 
nomena, followed  by,  or  changed  into,  other  phenomena, 
— a  continuous  procession  of  caused  causes — an  endless 
orderly  procession  of  passive  metamorphoses — each  term 
in  the  procession  the  passive  subject  of  a  rule ;  but  with- 
out innate  activity  being  found  in  any  of  the  units  of  the 
series,  in  the  way  self-originated  power  is  found  by  con- 
science in  my  agency.  For  conscience  obliges  me  to  recog- 
nise myself  as  the  final  agent  in  all  changes  which  evoke 
the  feeling  and  conviction  of  remorse.  The  moral  and 
immoral  acts  of  the  Ego  thus  differ  in  kind  from  caused 
causes  in  external  nature.  None  of  them  are  known  to  be 
agents  that  originate  their  own  acts,  as  I  am  found  by 
conscience  to  be,  when  I  am  judged  to  be  the  creator 
of  an  act  for  which  I  blame  myself.  Under  this  deeper 
conception  of  power,  outward  things  are  agents  only  meta- 
phorically:  they  are  empty  of  real  efficiency.  So  power 
proper  comes  to  be  regarded  as  that  in  which  change 
originates ;  not  that  which  is  only  a  constant  antecedent 
under  a  natural  rule,  which  a  priori  one  has  no  reason 
to  suppose  might  not  have  been  different.  The  physically 
scientific  conception  of  causality,  as  continuous  sequence 
of  appearances,  is  seen  to  be  thin  and  shallow.  Instead  of 
matter  and  its  forces  explaining  everything,  they  really 
explain  nothing :  all  the  conditions  of  change  under  gravi- 


74 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Matter 
only  a 
system  of 
interpret 


tation,  and  the  still  wider  law  of  evolution,  themselves 
need  to  be  explained ;  and  the  only  light  we  have  for  ex- 
planation comes  from  morally  responsible  agency.  Exter- 
nal things  are  agents  only  metaphorically :  the  ego  alone 
is  originative. 

In  this  way,  instead  of  being  an  aggregate  of  material 
agents,  to  each  of  which  certain  issues  may  be  finally  re- 
ferred, the  world  that  is  unfolded  to  our  five  senses  pre- 
abie  sense  sents  only  aggregates  of  passive  sense  appearances,  called 
sensible  things.  These  are  related  to  one  another,  not  as 
an  agent  is  connected  with  effects  which  originate  abso- 
lutely in  himself,  but  as  constant  antecedents  of  events 
yet  future,  which  they  passively  signify  to  us  in  a  prac- 
tical way,  because  they  are  in  constant  connection  with 
them.  What  are  called  causes  in  the  material  world  are 
only  premonitors,  which  warrant  men  in  expecting  the 
changes  they  are  believed  to  signify.  They  are  the  ap- 
pointed forerunners  of  events,  for  which  they  prepare 
those  who  are  able  to  interpret  them.  The  world  pre- 
sented to  sense  is  conceived  as  a  cosmos,  only  because  it  is 
conceived  to  be  this  system  of  interpretable  sense  signs : 
it  is  interpretable  because  certain  sorts  of  its  presented 
appearances  are  found  in  constant  sequence  with  certain 
other  sorts :  faith  in  this  constancy  makes  men  infer  that 
when  an  instance  of  the  one  sort  appears,  an  instance 
of  the  other  sort  may  be  expected.  The  material  world 
becomes  transformed,  under  this  conception,  into  a  system 
of  passive  sense  signs ;  and  we  find  that  we  are  able  to 
interpret  usefully  phenomena  which  signify  coming  plea- 
sure, and  others  which  signify  coming  pain. 


The  Pan- 
egoist  uni- 
verse. 


At  the  point  of  view  of  Panegoism,  the  universe  is  born 
and  dies  with  the  person  who  experiences  it ;  and  the 
only  person  of  whose  existence  I  am  conscious  is  myself. 
Matter  and  God  are  absorbed  and  lost  in  Me.  The 
solitary  Ego,  as  the  only  datum,  reduces  human  experience 
to  absurdity,  if  not  to  contradiction.  Unlike  Universal 
Materialism  and  Pantheism,  Panegoism  is  a  form  of 
Monism  which  can  hardly  lay  claim  to  a  historical  exist- 
ence, although  some  highly  speculative  minds  seem  to  have 


PANEGOISM.  To 

boldly  accepted  it,  as  the  logical  issue  of  their  analysis  of 
the  three  primary  data.  But  its  exaggerations  at  least 
help  to  illustrate  the  subordinate  office  of  Matter  in  the 
universe  of  existence,  and  its  true  relation  to  Spirit  in 
human  experience,  in  which  the  visible  world  appears  as 
the  servant  of  the  invisible  mind,  having  this  for  its 
chief  end.  It  is  chiefly  as  an  aid  to  reflection  upon  the 
absurdity  of  dominant  Materialism  that  I  have  enlarged 
upon  Panegoism. 

I  turn  now  to  the  third  primary  datum,  in  order  to  Another 
ponder-  its  adequacy  to  the  demands  of  reason  and  experi-  alternatlve- 
ence,  when  it  is  taken  to  supersede  the  other  two.  May 
the  final  intellectual  and  moral  satisfaction  desired  by  the 
philosopher  be  found,  when  God  is  assumed  as  the  only 
reality,  and  when  we  think  of  Matter  and  the  Ego  as  only 
illusory  modes  of  God  ?  This  third  phase  of  philosophical 
Monism  will  be  next  considered. 


76 


LECTUEE    III. 


PANTHEISM. 


Retrospect.  Let  me  recall  the  train  of  thought  thus  far.  At  the 
outset  I  put  before  you  my  conception  of  the  divine 
or  universal  problem  with  which  one  is  concerned,  when 
engaged  with  "  Natural  Theology  in  the  widest  sense  of 
the  term."  It  is  the  supreme  problem  of  human  life  in 
the  world  in  which  man  awakes  into  consciousness.  That 
what  is  experienced  exists,  is  what  most  of  us  take  for 
granted :  this  primary  faith  is  illustrated  whenever  things 
and  persons  are  presented  to  us  in  space  and  time.  But  a 
guarantee  is  needed  for  the  final  moral  and  intellectual 
trustworthiness  of  experience,  in  the  ever-changing  uni- 
verse in  which  I  find  myself.  I  have  entered  it  as  a 
stranger  and  involuntarily,  and  when  I  look  around  I 
ask — What  sort  of  universe  is  this  ?  May  I  look  at 
it  with  trust  and  hope,  as  an  orderly  system  ?  or  must 
I  resign  myself  to  final  distrust  and  despair?  What 
am  I,  who  have  become  self-conscious  and  percipient; 
and  for  what  purpose  am  I  in  this  conscious  life  ?  In 
what,  or  in  whom,  am  I  at  this  moment  living  and 
moving  and  having  my  being  ?  These  are  questions  in 
which  the  final  problem  of  existence  is  raised ;  they  are 
questions  with  which  philosophy  and  religion  are  con- 
cerned in  common.  Philosophy  culminates  in  answers  to 
them :  religion  presupposes  a  practical  answer.  Keligion 
does  not,  indeed,  involve  a  complete  solution  of  infinite 
problems  by  the  intellect.  For  religion  is  a  moral  re- 
lation of  thought,  emotion,  and  will  to  a    finally  divine 


PANTHEISM.  77 

environment ;  and  this  remains  good  although  the  divine 
reality  is  incompletely  comprehensible  in  a  human  under- 
standing. A  religious  life  of  adoration  and  moral  trust 
is  not  only  consistent  with,  but  involves  recognition  of, 
ultimate  mystery — mystery  to  which  reasoning,  in  ab- 
straction from  the  moral  and  emotional  elements  in 
human  nature,  is  inadequate.  Does  not  the  highest 
philosophy  take  the  form  of  religious  confidence  that 
man  need  not  be  put  to  intellectual  or  moral  confusion 
in  the  end  ? 

So  much  regarding  the  problem  of  Natural  or  Phil-  Articula- 
osophical  Theology.  Our  next  step  was  to  articulate  it  ^jfjjf1 
more  definitely.  There  are  three  final  existences — namely,  three  prim- 
my  inner  conscious  Self ;  the  outer  world  of  Matter,  which  ary  data- 
immediately  environs  me  ;  and  God,  or  the  universal 
Power.  These  are  our  three  primary  data.  Under  vari- 
ous conceptions  of  what  each  means,  they  are  all  tacitly 
assumed  by  mankind.  For  the  history  of  man  is  really 
a  record  of  the  gradual,  often  interrupted,  evolution  of 
three  central  ideas — one's  own  personality — one's  material 
environment — and  Divine  or  Universal  Power.  Our  con- 
ception of  each  is  modified  by  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
regarded  in  relation  to  the  other  two.  For  the  last  ques- 
tions regarding  each  cannot  be  raised  without  involving- 
answers  to  root  questions  about  the  others.  In  the  early 
stages  of  man's  development,  self,  or  the  personal  factor, 
is  only  obscurely  recognised.  The  idea  of  law  or  order 
in  the  sense  environment  is  also  dim  in  primitive  ages, 
as  at  first  in  the  life  of  every  man.  And  the  idea  of  God 
originally  appeared  in  crude  forms  of  fetichism  and  poly- 
theism, afterwards  of  interference  with  natural  order. 

After  these  preliminaries  we  entered  the  First  Part  of  Their  re- 
the  course,  to  contemplate   philosophical   endeavours  to  ^  pCSso-° 
reduce  the  three  primary  data  to  One.     With  his  craving  phicaJ 
for  unity,  the  theorist  is  dissatisfied  when  a  mysterious  JUJjJjj^. 
plurality  instead   of   an   imaginable  unity  is   offered   as  istic,  egois- 
final   reality.      The   instinct  of   the   speculative   thinker  ^i°tricpan" 
accordingly  makes  him  try  to  reduce  the  three  primary 
existences.     So  it  comes  about  that  some  are  disposed  to 
a  material  unity,  and  take  Matter  as  the  last  word  about 


78 


PHILOSOPHY    OF   THEISM. 


tioued. 


what  exists.  The  introspective  thinker,  again,  exaggerates 
the  conscious  Ego,  as  the  materialists  exaggerate  the  visible 
and  tangible  world:  he  sees  his  surroundings  dependent 
on  the  Ego;  and  his  last  word  about  what  he  is  living 
and  moving  and  having  his  being  in  is,  that  he  is  living 
and  moving  and  having  his  being  in  himself.  But  neither 
molecules  in  their  aggregates  and  organisms,  nor  the  Ego 
in  its  successive  conscious  states,  provides  the  desired 
unity  to  those  who  think  deeply.  A  final  reality,  either 
in  things  of  sense  or  in  myself,  is  inconsistent  with  the 
omnipresence  and  omnipotence  —  Infinity,  in  a  word  — 
which  must  belong  to  the  final  Power.  The  Ego  and  the 
things  by  which  I  am  surrounded  accordingly  lose  their 
own  reality:  they  are  conceived  as  unreal  modifications 
of  One  Infinite  Eeality. 
Pantheistic  Here  are  three  ultimate  conceptions  of  existence— that 
unity  and  mir]er  which  All  is  resolved  into  a  materialistic  unity; 
aimifun-  that  under  which  All  is  resolved  into  my  individual 
spiritual  unity ;  and  that  under  which  All  is  resolved 
into  the  Divine  unity.  But  while  each  of  these  exagger- 
ations of  one  datum,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  two, 
has  its  advocates,  perhaps  none  of  the  three  has  ever 
been  advocated  with  thoroughgoing  consistency.  We 
have  already  contemplated  Universal  Materialism  and 
Panegoism,  both  of  them  untheistic  when  logical.  Now 
we  are  to  look  at  Pantheism,  in  which  the  idea  of  God 
is  exclusive.  Pantheism  alone  among  the  three  gives  the 
conception  of  absolute  unity. 

We  found  modern  Materialism,  under  the  influence  of 
sensuous  imagination,  ready  to  accept  physical  science  as 
the  solution  of  the  universal  problem.  The  physical 
organism  is  supposed  to  explain  reason  and  will  as 
manifested  in  self-consciousness;  and  natural  history  of 
the  organism  is  substituted  for  introspective  criticism 
of  rational  and  volitional  activity.  The  details  of 
organic  evolution,  in  the  natural  sequence  of  biological 
causation,  are  without  doubt  full  of  interest;  but  they 
are  all  irrelevant  when  we  want  to  hear  the  final  voice 
of  reason  itself.  It  is  impossible  to  identify  rational 
consciousness  with  what  moves  in  space.      The  natural 


Matter 
as  the 
ultimate 
unity. 


PANTHEISM.  7  9 

science  of  the  visible  organism  is  irrelevant  to  theism : 
natural  procedure  is  not  atheistic ;  nor  is  rational  con- 
sciousness resolved  into  molecular  motion,  merely  because 
it  may  be  the  natural  outcome  of  physical  conditions. 

I  proceeded  next  to  ask  what  egoistic  immaterialism  has  The  Ego 
to  say  for  itself.  For  some  of  the  consequences  of  think-  g^^ 
ing  the  universe  of  things  and  persons  under  an  ultimately  unity. 
materialistic  unity  appear  in  a  striking  way,  when  we  re- 
verse our  point  of  view,  and  look  at  the  universe  wholly 
in  the  light  of  our  own  inward  conscious  life.  We  find 
that  space-occupying  things  depend  on  conscious  percep- 
tion in  unexpected  ways,  and  it  is  to  rational  conscious- 
ness that  materialism  itself  necessarily  appeals  at  last  in 
all  its  own  reasonings.  It  was  chiefly  to  illustrate  this 
inevitable  dependence  of  the  outward  upon  the  inward, 
that  I  tried  to  make  the  Ego  the  final  unity  in  the  uni- 
versal system,  resolving  outward  things  and  God  into  my 
subjective  experience.  It  is  true  that  Panegoism  is  hardly 
ever  an  accepted  philosophical  system,  at  least  with  a  full 
concession  of  its  logical  consequences.  It  has  been  attrib- 
uted to  Descartes,  as  an  implicate  of  his  method.  Fichte, 
at  a  certain  stage  in  his  philosophical  education,  has 
sometimes  been  considered  its  representative.  Hypo- 
thetically  stated,  it  suggests  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  of 
Universal  Materialism.  It  reduces  the  only  reality  of  the 
materialist  to  empty  negation,  when  the  light  ancl  life  of 
percipient  consciousness  is  withdrawn  from  existence. 
But  Panegoism,  too,  is  self-destructive :  it  shuts  the  ego  in 
suicidal  isolation  ;  because  postulates  of  reason,  which  con- 
nect individual  consciousness  with  what  is  outward  and 
with  the  infinite,  are,  on  its  narrow  basis,  dissolved  in  the 
one  datum  of  solitary  individuality. 

But  there  is  another  alternative  to  a  universe  of  Matter  God  as 
and  also  to  the  Ego  universe.  There  is  the  recognition  of  JJ^-jljf7 
Infinite  Being  as  the  only  possible  reality.  Mind  and 
matter,  in  us  and  around  us,  under  this  conception  have 
only  illusory  reality — not  more  or  other  than  as  transi- 
tory phases  of  One  Absolute  Eeality,  of  which  the  finite 
universe,  in   all  its   degrees,   from  minerals   up  to   men, 


80  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

is    the    necessitated    illusion.       The    universe    conceived 
pantheistically  is    the   eternal   involuntary   evolution   of 
Infinite   Being:    the  being  that  we  call   "our  own"   is 
only  a  modification  of  the  One  Being.     Atoms  in  their 
visible  organisations,  and  the  ego  in  its  conscious  states, 
are   modes    of   Infinite   Being,   the   only   Substance   and 
Power.     This  is  pantheistic  Monism,  or  the  necessitated 
unity  of  the  All.     The  innumerable  atoms  of  materialism 
present  an  empirical  and  generic  unity,  rather  than  the 
necessary  and  infinite  One.     In  Infinite  Being  alone  we 
find  unity  that  is  logically  inconsistent  with  real  plurality; 
necessity    that    is    inconsistent    with    real    contingency; 
eternity  that  supersedes  duration. 
Are  finite         Infinite  Being,  or  the  One  Substance,  seems,  therefore, 
things  and  t0  have  a  claim  in  reason  to  exclusiveness  which  neither 
Kance,    of  the  two  other  data  can  produce.     God  is  more  truly 
in  the  way  substance  and  power,  even  under  ordinary  conceptions  of 
iteitaBg'is  what  substance  and  power  mean,  than  finite  things  and 
Substance?  perSons  can  be.     Descartes  defined  "substance"   as  that 
which  so  exists  that  it  needs  nothing  else  to  account  for 
or  sustain  its  existence :  what  are  called  "  created "  sub- 
stances— bodies  and  egos  to  wit— are  beings  that  need 
God    for    their    beginning   and   continuance;    they    are, 
therefore,  substances  only  in  a  secondary  sense— what- 
ever that  may  amount  to :  substance  proper  is  that  which 
exists   in   itself  —  self  -  existent   reality.      Spinoza,   more 
logical  than  Descartes,  concluded  from  this  that  substance 
must  be  One,  so  that  whatever  is  finite  and  plural  can 
onlv  be  illusory. 
Pantheism        Pantheism,  in  one  or  other  of  its  many  protean  forms, 
in  its  pro-    js  a  way  0f  thinking  about  the  universe  that  has  proved 
pervade?8  its  influence  over  millions  of  human  minds.     Looked  at  in 
the  intel-     one  ijaht  it  seems  to  be  Atheism  ;  in  another,  sentimental 
entuonai1  or    mystical    Theism ;    in   a   third,    Calvinism.      It    has 
history  of    o-overned  the  religious  and  philosophical"  thought  of  India 
mankind.     |>or  ageg      Except  in  Palestine,  with  its  intense  Hebrew 
consciousness  of  a  personal  God,  it  has  been  characteristic 
of  Asiatic  thought.      It  is  the  religious  philosophy  of  a 
moiety  of  the  human  race.     In  the  West  we  find  a  pan- 
theistic idea  at  work  in  different  degrees  of  distinctness— 


PANTHEISM.  81 

in  the  pre-Socratic  schools  of  Greece,  as  in  Parmenicles ; 
after  Socrates,  among  the  Stoics ;  then  among  the  Neo- 
Platonists  of  Alexandria,  with  Plotinus  in  ecstatic  eleva- 
tion— a  signal  representative ;  again,  in  a  striking  form  in 
Scotus  Erigena,  who  startles  us  with  intrepid  speculation 
in  the  darkness  of  the  ninth  century,  the  least  philosophi- 
cal period  in  European  history ;  yet  again,  with  Bruno  as 
its  herald,  after  the  renascence :  and  in  the  seventeenth 
century  the  speculative  thought  of  Europe  culminated  in 
Spinoza's  logically  articulated  pantheistic  unity  and 
necessity.  The  pantheistic  conception  was  uncongenial  to 
the  spirit  and  methods  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  it 
is  at  the  root  of  much  present  religious  and  scientific 
speculation  in  Europe  and  America.  It  emerges  in  the 
superconscious  intuition  of  Schelling :  it  has  affinities 
with  the  absolute  self-consciousness  of  the  Hegelian :  it 
is  implied  in  the  Absolute  Will  and  the  Unconscious 
Absolute  of  Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann,  in  Germany ; 
and  in  England  it  has  affinity  with  the  Unknowable 
Power  behind  phenomena  of  Herbert  Spencer. 

This  philosophical  form  of  thought  is  older  and  more  The  word 
widely  spread  than  the  name  now  appropriated  to  it ;  for  Pantlieism- 
the  term  is  of  modern  date.  The  '  Pantheisticon'  of  John 
Toland,  early  in  last  century,  probably  brought  the  word 
into  vogue  in  this  country,  although  the  pantheistic  idea 
was  an  exotic  among  us  until  the  present  century.  For 
those  now  called  pantheists  were  of  old  called  atheists, 
because  they  seemed  to  identify  their  One  Substance  with 
the  universe  of  Immensity,  or  to  treat  it  as  tertium  quid 
— impersonal — neither  matter  nor  mind.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  the  universe  is  seen  strongly  in  dependence  on 
Spirit,  the  pantheistic  language  used  admits  of  monothe- 
istic interpretation.  We  find  Berkeley  saying  in  '  Siris  ' 
that  "  whether  God  be  abstracted  from  the  sensible  world, 
and  considered  as  distinct  from  and  presiding  over  the 
created  system ;  or  whether  the  whole  universe,  including 
mind  together  with  the  mundane  body,  is  conceived  to  be 
God,  and  the  creatures  to  be  partial  manifestations  of  the 
divine  essence, — there  is  no  atheism  in  either  case,  what- 
ever misconception  there  may   be ; — so  long  as  Mind  or 

F 


82  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

Intellect  is  understood  to  preside  over,  govern,  and  con- 
duct the  whole  frame  of  things."  This  is  not  necessarily 
inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  morally  responsible 
persons.  With  this  proviso  it  is  not  pantheism,  either 
cosmic  or  acosmic. 
Deism.  Pantheism   is    an    ambiguous  term.       It  is   apt   to   be 

applied  to  theists  who  emphasise  what  distinguishes  them 
from  deists.  Deism,  theism,  and  pantheism  should  be  dis- 
tinguished. Under  the  gross  deistical  conception,  what 
is  called  God  is  imaged  as  existing  in  a  place  apart — 
determined  at  a  certain  time  to  create  the  things  and 
persons  that  have  appeared — these  all  after  creation  being- 
left  by  this  remote  Deity  to  supposed  forces  in  nature — 
God  at  a  distance — usually  doing  nothing— occasionally 
interfering  with  the  natural  order,  by  miracle  or  prov- 
idence—  a  wholly  transcendent  and  alien  God  —  an  in- 
dividual among  individuals,  instead  of  the  One  Absolute 
Being. 
Pantheism  The  pantheistic  conception  is  at  the  opposite  extreme 
as  opposed  to  t|ie  deistical :  Gocl  is  the  ever-evolving  infinite  Being : 
individuals,  or  Deity  modified  by  innate  necessity,  could 
present  no  other  appearances  than  those  they  present  in 
nature :  finite  things  and  persons  are  related  to  God  as 
its  waves  are  related  to  the  ocean,  whose  surface  they 
occasionally  disturb — the  waves  not  of  a  finite  but  of 
infinite  ocean.  But  as  waves  are  always  water,  even  so 
ever-changing  things  and  persons  are  always  God. 

In  Nature  see  nor  shell  nor  kernel, 
But  the  All  in  All  and  the  Eternal. 


to  Deism. 


mediate. 


Theism  Intermediate  between  the  deistical   conception    of  ^  an 

as  inter-  i<ile  God,  remote  from  the  world,  occasionally  interfering, 
and  the  pantheistic  conception  of  God  as  Universal  Being 
in  its  infinite  necessities,  there  is  the  theistic  conception 
of  the  universe  of  human  experience — given  as  revelation 
— incomplete  revelation  —  of  God:  God  revealed  in  the 
contents  of  space  and  time,  but  not  therein  exhausted; 
Gocl  not  so  necessitated  as  that  whatever — good  or  evil 
— enters  into  existence  must  be  divinely  necessitated; — 


PANTHEISM.  83 

without  room  for  moral  or  immoral  acts  of  persons,  or 
for  ideals  of  duty,  or  for  the  rise  into  existence  of  any 
act  that  ought  not  to  exist. 

The  developed  idea  of  God,  as  the  omnipresent  Life  of  Thepres- 
the  world,  constantly  operating  in  and  through  natural  qJJ^^ 
laws,  is   common    to    educated   theism    with    pantheism,  Active 
and  is  what  modern  theism  owes  to  pantheistic  exagsera-  Reas°u 

x  oo  DGrVtU  Line 

tion.  It  distinguishes  both  from  the  deism  in  which  the  uni- 
God  is  conceived  as  at  a  distance,  leaving  the  ordinary  verse- 
evolution  of  the  material  world  and  society  to  natural 
law.  The  thought  and  feeling  of  divine  immanence  or 
omnipresence  in  all  natural  change ;  of  the  finite  as 
pervaded  by  and  sustained  in  what  is  infinite,  comes 
out,  in  ancient  and  modern  poetry  and  religion.  It  is 
the  intense  expression  of  a  theism  so  conscious  of  the 
uniqueness  and  pervadingness  of  Deity  as  to  refuse 
to  think  God  apart, — a  Person  outside  other  persons. 
Hebrew  literature,  with  its  abundant  representations  of 
God  as  personal,  still  suggests  the  idea  of  God  latent 
in  the  heart  of  universal  reality.  Instead  of  an  in- 
dividual and  distant  God,  external  to  the  cosmos,  but 
occasionally  operating  in  it  as  a  disturbing  God,  its 
voice  is,  — "  Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy  spirit  ?  or 
whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence  ?  If  I  ascend 
up  into  heaven,  Thou  art  there:  if  I  make  my  bed  in 
hell,  behold,  Thou  art  there.  If  I  take  the  wings  of 
the  morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
sea;  even  there  shall  Thy  hand  lead  me,  and  Thy  right 
hand  shall  hold  me."  And  there  is  expressed  sense  of 
despair,  apart  from  the  all -enveloping  and  pervading 
and  supporting  Power :  "  The  way  of  man  is  not  in  him- 
self :  it  is  not  in  man  that  walketh  to  direct  his  steps." 
Again  of  the  voice  of  faith  and  hope :  "  God  is  not  far 
from  every  one  of  us :  for  in  Him  we  live,  and  move, 
and  have  our  being."  So  too  with  the  thinkers  and 
prophets  of  Christianity — in  the  early  Greek  Church,  as 
Clement  and  Origen,  and  in  the  medieval  ages  of  faith. 
This  is  followed  by  more  deistical  conceptions  in  early 
Protestantism,  which  tend  to  divorce  nature,  as  wholly 
secular,    from    God   as    wholly    supernatural.      Keaction 


84  PHILOSOPHY    OF   THEISM. 

against  this  finds  expression  in  our  own  religious  poet, 
who  had  learned — 

"  To  look  at  Nature,  not  as  in  the  hour 
Of  thoughtless  youth  j " 

and  was  wont  to  feel — 

"  A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts  :  a  sense  sublime 
Of  Something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky — and  in  the  mind  of  man." 

Pantheistic  The  dreamy  abstract  character  of  pantheism  is  found 
dreams  of  jn  jts  protean  modes  of  representing  the  relation  of  all 
irigena.  that  appears  in  space  and  time  to  the  Divine  Power 
and  Substance.  Is  God  eternally  under  modification; 
or  have  the  modifications,  called  things  and  persons 
with  their  changes,  a  beginning,  and  will  they  all  end; 
so  that  things  and  persons  shall  at  last  disappear  in 
God,  with  an  eternal  cessation  of  change,  time  and 
change  being  illusions  of  sensuous  imagination  ?  So  the 
medieval  pantheist,  Scotus  Erigena,  speculates  in  his 
philosophic  dream  about  "  Nature,"  or  the  totality  of 
existence.  In  the  dream  all  nature  consists  of  God. 
The  finite  universe  in  its  total  evolution  is  a  flash  of 
light  in  the  darkness  and  silence  of  unconscious  un- 
differentiated Being.  God  is  the  essence  of  all  things 
and  persons,  in  which  they  must  at  last  eternally  and 
unconsciously  repose.  These  tremendous  assertions,  offered 
without  proof,  illustrate  the  elasticity  of  pantheistic  imag- 
ination, and  its  indifference  to  the  demands  of  human  ex- 
perience. Speculation  first  fancies  what  reality  must  be, 
and  then  disdains  all  troublesome  facts,  which  are  dis- 
paraged as  sensuous  imaginations.  Experience  is  treated 
as  an  illusory  descent  from  the  universal  to  the  particular, 
from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete.  In  the  end,  as  in  the 
beginning,  all  resolves  into  the  inexperienced  or  the  un- 
conscious. 

This  much  in  illustration  of  some  phases  of  Pantheism, 
when  it  was  trying  to  occupy  a  position  between  Atheism 


PANTHEISM.  85 

and  Theism.     But  it  is  by  Spinoza  that  the  idea  of  pan-  |PJ™zaa 
theistic  unity   and  necessity,  as  the  final  conception   of  ^nthdsm 
existence,  is  put  before  us  in  the  most  systematic  form,  j^^™^ 
and  with  claims  to  unbroken  demonstration.     In  Spinoza  tf™°ns 
an  abstract  intellectual  philosophy  is  identified  with  re- 
ligion.    He  is  the  prince  of  those  systematic  divines  who 
bid  defiance  to  Bacon's  warning,  that  "  perfection  or  com- 
pleteness in  divinity  is  not  to  be  sought " ;  that  "  he  that 
will  reduce  a  knowledge  into  an  art  or  science  must  make 
it   round    and   uniform,"   whereas    in    divine   philosophy 
"many    things    must   be    left    abrupt"  — if    man    keeps 
faithful  to  experienced  reality.     Therefore   philosophical 
thought,  when  it  becomes  theological,  must,  in  a  human 
understanding,  become  aphoristic,  and   can  never  be  an 
exhaustive  system  of  All,  as  seen  at  the  divine  centre,  or 
sub  specie  ceternitatis. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  that  when  we  conceive  the  Alterna- 
universe  in  the  Spinozistic  form  of  a  pantheistically  ^edse°n 
necessitated  Unity,  with  finite  things  and  persons,  spaces  thought. 
and  times,  only  necessitated  modes,  we  seem  to  be  adopt- 
ing the  conception  under  which  Lord  GifTord  wishes  the 
problems  of  Natural  Theology  to  be  investigated.  _  And 
in  a  way  I  am  making  it  my  starting-point.  For,  in  the 
foregoing  negative  criticism  of  Monist  systems,  I  have 
found  myself  repelled,  first  from  Materialism  or  atomism, 
and  then  from  individual  Egoism,  on  account  of  the  in- 
adequacy and  incoherence  of  these  attempts  to  reach  a 
satisfying  unity.  Each  of  these  leaves  man  isolated  and 
without  absolute  support;  for  in  neither  is  there  the 
divine  or  perfect  synthesis.  This  support  Pantheism 
offers  in  excess,  for  it  deifies  everything.  If  we  fail  to 
find  a  pantheistic  home  we  must  abandon  the  hope  of 
satisfying  the  desire  for  unity  in  strict  Monist  form.  Pan- 
theistic Science,  Universal  Nescience,  and  Theistic  Faith 
are  three  ideals  now  before  Europe  and  the  world ;  with 
some  educated  and  more  half-educated  thought  oscillating 
between  the  first  and  the  second.  Which  of  these  three  is 
the  most  reasonable  final  conception— the  fittest  for  man 
in  the  full  breadth  of  his  physical  and  spiritual  being  ? 


86 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Spiuozism 
and  Lord 
Gifford. 


All  things 
and  per- 
sons as 
consub- 

stantiated 
in  God, 
the  only 
Substance. 


Unsubstan- 
tiality  of 
finite 
things 
and  per- 
sons. 


As  I  have  said,  the  pantheistic  idea  of  substantiation 
of  the  world  and  the  ego  in  One  Infinite  Substance, 
called  God,  is  an  idea  that  lurks  in  Lord  Gifford's  Deed 
of  Foundation,  the  idea  which  he  seems  to  desire  to  have 
worked  out  and  tested  through  this  lectureship,  in  some  of 
the  innumerable  fruitful  ways  which  its  development 
might  open  to  mankind.  The  idea  comes  out  strongly 
in  a  lecture  on  "  Substance,"  delivered  by  him  some 
years  before  his  death.  I  make  no  apology  for  quoting 
some  sentences  from  this  rare  and  curious  tract,  to  show 
how  near  the  idea  of  Divine  Substantiation  of  things  and 
persons  lay  to  his  heart. 

He  conceives  God  as  the  one  and  only  Substance,  the  one 
hidden  reality  that  exists  under  all  concrete  beings,  and 
to  which  all  their  phenomena  are  to  be  ascribed.  So  he 
tells  us  that  the  word  Substance  is  "  the  grandest  word  in 
any  language."  Substance  is  "  that  which  is  below  and 
above  and  around  and  within  "  all  material  things,  and  all 
minds  or  egos ;  that  in  which  they  all  exist ;  so  that 
whatever  is  predicable  of  them  must  be  predicable  of 
the  One  Substance  of  which  they  are  parts.  Take  the 
following : — 

"  To  come  to  the  root  and  bottom  of  the  matter  at  once,. 
I  ask  you  to  look  at  the  forces  and  energies  and  laws  of 
nature ;  and  the  laws  of  life  which  have  so  much  to  do  with 
the  phenomena  of  external  nature  and  of  man  which  we 
have  been  examining.  .  .  .  What  are  these  forces  and 
energies — innate  in  matter  forsooth,  innate  in  protoplasm^ 
innate  in  organisation — and  on  which  so  much  reliance  is 
placed  ?  Do  these  forces  and  energies  explain  anything  ? 
Do  they  not  just  put  the  question  further  back,  or  further 
on  ?  Tor  the  question  is,  What  is  the  substance  of  all  the 
forces  and  energies  themselves  ?  They  are  not  final  and 
ultimate ;  they  themselves  need  explanation ;  there  must 
be  Something  behind  and  beyond  them  all.  They  are  not 
self-originated  :  they  are  not  self-maintained  :  they  are  but 
words,  telling  us  to  go  deeper  and  to  go  higher ;  they  all 
seem  to  say  to  the  anxious  inquirer,  '  Not  in  us,  not  in  us.' 
.  .  .  The  force  behind  and  in  all  forces,  the  energy  of  all 
energies,  the  explanation  of  all  explanations,  the  cause 


PANTHEISM.  87 

of  all  causes  and  of  all  effects,  the  Soul  that  is  within 
and  below  and  behind  each  soul,  the  Mind  that  inspires 
and  animates  and  thinks  in  each  mind — in  one  word,  the 
Substance  of  all  substances,  the  Substance  of  all  phe- 
nomena, is— God.  '  Nature  !  'tis  but  the  name  of  an  effect.' 
The  cause  is  God.  Now  we  have  reached  a  Substance  that 
does  not  in  its  turn  become  merely  a  phenomenon  ;  a  Sub- 
stance which  has  nothing  behind  it,  but  of  which  all  things 
and  persons,  past,  present,  or  future,  are  but  the  forms. 
.  .  Substance  is  the  true  name  of  God.  Every  line  of 
thought  meets  here.  Every  eager  question  is  answered 
here.  Every  difficulty  and  perplexity  is  resolved  here. 
Here  the  philosopher  must  rest.  Here  the  ignorant  must 
repose.  This  universe  and  all  its  phenomena — other  uni- 
verses, unthinkable  by  human  minds — all  are  but  forms 
of  the  Infinite,  shadows  of  the  Substance  that  is  One  for 
ever.  .  .  .  There  cannot  be  a  finite  energy  that  is  due 
only  to  itself  alone,  and  which  is  independent  of  every- 
thing else ;  for  there  can  be  but  One  Infinite.  ...  It  is 
mere  repetition  to  say,  That  if  God  be  the  very  Substance 
and  Essence  of  every  force,  and  of  every  being,  He  must 
be  the  very  Substance  and  Essence  of  the  human  soul. 
The  human  soul  is  neither  self-derived  nor  self-subsisting. 
It  is  but  a  manifestation,  a  phenomenon.  It  would  vanish 
if  it  had  not  a  substance ;  and  its  substance  is  God.  .  .  . 
Then  if  God  be  the  substance  of  our  souls,  He  must  also 
be  the  substance  of  all  our  thoughts  and  of  all  our  actions. 
Thoughts  and  actions  are  not  self-sustaining,  self-produc- 
ing, any  more  than  worlds.  They  are  mere  manifestations, 
first  of  our  souls,  but  next,  and  far  more  truly,  of  God, 
who  is  our  Substance.  In  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being.  We  are  parts  of  the  Infinite— literally, 
strictly,  scientifically  so.  A  human  soul,  or  a  human 
thought  and  action,  outside  of  God,  would  be  a  rival  deity. 

"  In  all  this  I  have  not  gone  a  single  step  out  of  my  He  sees 
way  as  a  student  of  mental  science ;  and  if  I  have  had  to  ^cees 
speak  to  you  of  God — frankly  and  freely — that  is  only  culminat- 
because  God  is  necessarily  found  by  all  who  fairly  follow  jjg^  of 
up  the  purely  scientific  idea  of.  substance  to  its  deepest  the  One 
roots  and  its  highest  sources.     The  highest  science  always  Substance. 


88 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


becomes  religious— nay,  religion  itself.  .  .  .  Science  knows 
no  authority  but  the  intuition  of  truth.  If  God  be  the 
substance  of  all  forces  and  powers,  and  of  all  beings  He 
must  be  the  only  substance,— the  only  substance  in  'this 
universe,  or  in  all  possible  universes.  This  Unity  of  Sub- 
stance is  the  grand  truth  on  which  the  system  of  Spinoza  is 
tounded.  '  I  am,  and  there  is  none  besides  Me  '—no  beino- 
no  thing,  no  existence  besides.  I  am,  and  nothing  else  is 
It  there  could  be  two  Substances;  if  anything  else  but 
God  existed,  anything  outside  God,  anything  of  which 
God  was  not  the  substance,— then  there  would  be  two 
gods,  and  neither  of  them  would  be  infinite.  But  I  must 
forbear,"  he  says  at  last,  "  I  must  forbear  to  trace  further 
the  consequences  of  God  being  seen  as  the  one  eternal  and 
only  Substance.  The  subject  might  be  expanded  into 
many  volumes." 

It  is  "  expansion  "  into  its  consequences  of  the  idea  of 
God  as  the  One  only  Substance,  with  criticism  of  the  same 
in  the  innumerable  ways  in  which  the  thought  may  be 
Substance,  conceived  by  different  minds,  that  Lord  Gifford  seems  to 
have  had  before  him,  as  that  which  generations  of  thinkers 
might  work  out,  according  to  their  respective  individu- 
alities. The  idea  itself  is  an  elastic  one,  apt  to  evade 
intellectual  grasp,  and  while  attributed  by  him  to  Spinoza 
was  held  in  fervid  sentiment  by  Lord  Gifford,  probably 
more  and  other  than  intellectual  Spinozism. 

I  will  next  ask  you  to  look  into  the  grounds  and  con- 
sequences of  the  Spinozistic  conception  of  the  universe. 
Inis  will  open  the  way  from  Untheistic  Monism  to  the 
rationale  or  human  faith  and  hope  in  the  Universal 
rower. 


Scientific 
explica- 
tion of 
the  On 


Prospec 
tive. 


LECTUEE   IV. 

PANTHEISTIC   UNITY   AND   NECESSITY:    SPINOZA. 

David  Hume  has  been  called  the  "prince  of  agnostics."  Spinoza 
Spinoza   is   the   prince    of    pantheists.     The   intellectual  ^lld  David 
dimensions  of  "  natural  theology,  in  the  widest  meaning  of  severally 
the  term,"  are  recognised  by  none  more  than  bv  Spinoza  personify 

.  j       x.  Pantheism 

and  Hume  —  at  opposite  extremes,  —  extremes  which  andPyr- 
curiously  approach  one  another  in  the  end.  Spinoza  rhonism. 
starts  from  the  divine  centre,  in  abstract  thought;  Hume 
from  the  circumference,  in  sensuous  experience.  Bens,  as 
abstract  Unica  Substantia,  is  the  criterion  with  the  one ; 
homo  mensura  is  the  regulative  principle  of  the  other — 
but  the  homo  is  only  the  homo  of  sensuous  impressions,  not 
the  God-inspired  homo.  I  do  not  attempt  an  exhaustive 
criticism  of  either  Spinoza  or  Hume,  but  ask  leave  to 
follow  my  own  course,  while  not  forgetting  these  two 
names. 

Spinoza  is  a  puzzle  to  his  interpreters.  Those  who  have  The  am- 
lived  for  years  mentally  in  his  company,  seeking  to  think  gi^uitij!aof 
the  genuine  thought  of  this  speculative  genius,  confess 
doubt  about  their  interpretations,  and  their  insight  into 
the  purpose  of  the  singular  recluse,  who  made  his  appear- 
ance in  Holland  in  the  seventeenth  century,  three  months 
after  Locke  entered  the  world.  In  the  age  that  followed 
his  life  Spinoza  was  regarded  as  an  atheist  and  a  blas- 
phemer. In  the  nineteenth  century  he  receives  homage 
as  a  saint.  The  amiable  Malebranche,  Samuel  Clarke, 
representative  English  philosophical  theologian  of  his 
generation,  the  sceptical  Bayle,  and  the  cynical  Voltaire, 


90  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

all  suppose  in  Spinoza  an  enemy  of  religion.     By  Lessing 
and  Novalis,  Goethe  and  Schleiennacher,  he  is  canonised 
for  virtue  and  piety.     Once  anathematised  by  Jews  and 
Christians,  this  proclaimed  atheist  is  now  described  as  a 
god-intoxicated    mystic.      Between    these   extremes    men 
oscillate  in  their  reading  of  the  pensive  spectacle-grinder 
in  Holland,  as  they  see  in  him  the  logical  reasoner  who 
treats    Deity    as    an    empty    abstraction,   or    recognise    a 
devotee,  ready  in  self-sacrificing  spirit  to  lose  his  indi- 
viduality  in    his    divine    Substance.      The  characteristic 
elasticity  of   pantheism   may   explain   the   contradiction. 
The    pantheist    conception    is    susceptible    of    either    a 
materialist  or  an  idealist  development :    under  one  light 
it  yields  intellectual  atheism,  and   under   another  senti- 
mental theism.     An  alien  in  the  prevailing  spirit  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  probably  no  other  personage  living  in 
the  preceding  century  has  more  powerfully  affected  theo- 
logical  philosophy  in  this  generation  than  this  solitary 
reasoner,  who  devoted  the  thinking  part  of  his  short  life  of 
forty-four  years  to  meditative  speculation  about  God.    An 
intellectual  love  of  God,  experienced  in  discovery  of  his 
own  identity  with  God,  was  the  peace  of  Spinoza's  life, 
the  religion  to  which  he  sincerely  aspired.     It  was  a  life 
of  more  than  common  simplicity,  frugality,  and  indiffer- 
ence   to   sensuous   pleasure,   that   this    swarthy,    slender, 
consumptive-looking  youth  passed  through  in  his  lonely 
lodging  at  The  Hague.     His  very  innocence  and  virtue, 
matured   into   invincible   habit,   in   which  the  man   was 
lost  in  the  abstract  thinker,  may  have  blinded  him  to  the 
defects  of  a  doctrine  which,  when  it  is  rigidly  interpreted, 
overturns  morality, 
in  Spinoz-        The  resigned  feeling  that  I  and  all  persons  are  having 
ism  the       our  being  as  mathematically  differentiated  modifications  of 
Reality  is     One  Undifferentiated  Substance,  seems  to  be  the  essence 
regarded      0f  Spinoza's  religion.     He  finds  himself  under  an  intel- 
fnnnit°enCe    lectual    obligation    to    acknowledge    one    and    only    one 
and  finite ;  reality — indifferently  named  God,  Nature,  or   Unica  Sub- 
ancunodes.  stantia.      Its   attributes    are   infinite :    the    modifications 
which  these  attributes  somehow  assume  are  finite.     The 
attributes  of  the  Divine  Substance  that  are  known  to  man 


PANTHEISTIC    NECESSITY.  91 

are  only  two — infinite  extension  and  infinite  thought :  God 
or  Nature  is  known  only  in  modes  of  extension  and  modes 
of  thought. 

Individual  things  and  individual  persons  are  formed  by  in  Spinoz- 
human  imagination  out  of  these  modes :  neither  the  things  jgjj^j 
nor  the  persons  have  real  existence :  their  appearance  of  things  are 
reality  is  explained  by  Spinoza  as  an  illusion  of  imagina-  illusions, 
tion,  which  necessarily  arises  when  modes  are  conceived  in 
abstraction  from  the  Divine  Eeality.  Taking  the  meta- 
phor of  the  ocean  and  its  waves  to  represent  the  Unica 
Substantia,  individual  persons  and  things  are  like  those 
waves  changed  into  lumps  of  ice.  Imagination  deludes 
us  in  the  supposition  that  they  are  more  than  modifica- 
tions of  the  infinite  space  or  the  infinite  thought,  which 
exist  in  necessary  correlation ;  for  extension  and  thought 
are  correlative  phases  of  the  One  Substance.  But  this 
evolution  of  individuals  out  of  the  Undifferentiated  Unity 
is  truly  illusion,  according  to  Spinoza :  under  his  supreme 
principle — omnis  determinatio  est  negatio — the  finite  can 
be  only  a  negation  of  the  Infinite,  not  a  positive  reality. 
Nevertheless,  he  proceeds  as  if  the  Infinite  were  de- 
composable by  abstraction,  capable  of  being  regarded 
alternately  as  Infinite  and  finite,  Substance  and  modes, 
Undetermined  yet  differentiated  in  mathematically  neces- 
sary forms. 

Thus   the   two   attributes  of  God  known   to  man  are  The  modes 
represented  in  imagination  as  individual  things  and  indi-  °*j^  Sub_ 
vidual   persons,  and   endowed   with    an    illusory  reality,  stantia 
Things  and  persons  may  both  be  reasoned  about  geometri-  JJJJJJ^J 
cally ;    for    extension    and    thought,    being    substantially  geometri- 
identical,  are  necessarily  correlative,  so  that  thought  and  ?S  qu£n" 
theology    are   philosophically    unfolded   in    mathematical  Spinoza, 
terms.      They  form  between  them  the  natura  naturata, 
which,  by  a  logical  but  not  real  distinction,  Spinoza  con- 
trasts with  the  natura  naturans.     These  names,  instead  of 
universe  and  God,  express  the  unity  and  identity  of  the 
One  Substance;  which,  as  I  have  said,  may  be  reasoned 
out  in  terms  of  geometrical  quantity,  seeing  that  extension 
and  thought  are  in  rational  correlation.    The  Substance  of 
which  I  find  myself  a  mode,  may  be  speculated  either  in 


92  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

abstract  unity  or  in  its  concrete  modes, — at  once  infinite 
and  finite,  undifferentiated  and  yet  under  mathematical 
forms.  God  without  the  universe  has  no  self-existent  life 
of  His  own :  Unica  Substantia  is  empty  substance,  with- 
out attributes  and  therefore  without  meaning :  natura 
naturata  is  a  necessity  of  existence  as  much  as  natura 
naturans.  We  are  living  and  moving  and  having  our 
being  in  the  One  Divine  Immensity,  which  contains 
all  that  can  exist.  The  universe  of  finite  things  and 
persons  must  be  as  it  is.  There  is  no  room  for  the  crea- 
tion by  finite  persons  of  acts  which  conform  to  ideals  of 
duty  and  goodness ;  nor  yet  of  evil  acts  which  ought  not 
to  exist,  and  are  therefore  not  absolutely  necessitated. 
Eeality  and  perfection  must  be  one,  under  Spinoza's  de- 
monstrations :  the  homo  mensura  postulate  must  not  inter- 
fere to  arrest  the  inference.  A  conclusion  of  this  mathe- 
matical pantheism  is  that  there  can  be  no  contingency, 
even  at  the  point  of  view  of  human  philosophy ; — apparent 
personal  freedom  from  mathematical  necessity  is  delusion, 
the  issue  of  inadequate  knowledge.  So  too  is  every  con- 
jecture about  final  reality  which  supposes  that  natura 
naturata  is  ruled  by  man's  ideas  of  providential  good  and 
evil,  order  and  disorder,  or  for  those  ends  which  seem 
desirable  according  to  a  human  imagination  of  provi- 
dence. Human  desires  must  be  regulated  by  the  mathe- 
matical necessities  of  Nature,  which  is  another  name 
for  God  —  not  by  the  self  -  regarding  interests  of  men. 
Here  Spinozistic  pantheism  looks  like  atheism.  In  words 
Spinoza  gives  us  nothing  but  God ;  yet  in  fact  he  gives  us 
only  an  unmoral  God,  stripped  of  providence  and  purpose. 

The  ideas         But  is  not  this  way  of  looking  finally  at  the  universe 
of  space,      unlike   reality   as   revealed   in   our   deepest   experience  ? 
stance,  and  When  we  try  to  assimilate  the  speculative  thought  un- 
causaiity,     rolled  in  the  abstract  demonstrations  of  Spinoza,  we  are 
towards       carried    away  from  experience,  which  with  him  is  only 
infinite        a  name  for  finite  illusion.     We  are  summoned  into  that 
sublime  idea  of   Infinite,  which  with  him  becomes   pan- 
theistic unity  and  necessity,  while  for  others  it  sustains 
theistic  faith.     The  Infinite,  in  fact,  is  not  very  far  from 


PANTHEISTIC    NECESSITY.  93 

any  one  of  us,  for  all  our  mental  experience  suggests 
Immensity,  Eternity,  Causality,  and  Substance.  Dwell 
once  more  on  this  fact.  These  avenues  to  Infinite 
Eeality,  contrasted  with  the  limits  within  which  we  find 
ourselves  involved  in  nature,  are  not  arbitrary  construc- 
tions of  imagination,  remote  from  actual  life.  When  we 
reflect  we  find  intellectual  tendencies,  of  which  we  cannot 
rid  ourselves,  which  connect  all  that  is  presented  in  sense 
and  in  our  inner  experience  with  what  passes  understand- 
ing. Places  and  dates,  persons  and  things,  the  changes  of 
which  persons  and  things  are  the  subjects — are  all  found  at 
last  to  have  their  roots  among  ideas  which  we  are  obliged 
to  recognise  as  inevitably  incomplete,  or  which  irresistibly 
tend  towards  an  inevitable  incompleteness.  We  cannot 
rid  ourselves  of  those  ideas.  The  place  where  I  am 
now  standing,  for  instance,  somehow  involves  Immensity, 
whose  centre  is  everywhere,  while  its  circumference  is 
nowhere.  The  hour  within  which  I  am  now  writing 
is  somehow  contained  within  the  endless  or  timeless 
Eternity.  And  the  natural  evolution  of  the  ever-chang- 
ing physical  universe  seems  at  last  to  merge  in  what  is 
unchanging  and  time-transcending.  Then  when  we  try 
to  get  at  the  very  Substance  of  the  things  and  persons 
presented  in  experience,  we  find  that  we  are  pursuing 
something  that  evades  us,  in  an  endless  yet  unavoidable 
regress.  What  actually  appears,  we  are  obliged  to  con- 
nect with  something  beyond ;  and  this  something,  when 
discovered,  in  its  turn  leads  on  to  more  still  beyond  ;  and 
so  on  in  an  always  unsatisfied  pursuit  after  finality  in  the 
form  of  Substance.  "  If  any  one,"  says  Locke,  "  if  any  one 
should  be  asked  what  is  the  substance  in  which  a  colour 
that  he  sees  inheres,  or  in  which  a  weight  he  feels  inheres, 
he  would  have  nothing  to  say  but  that  they  inhere  in  the 
solid  extended  parts  or  atoms  of  which  the  coloured 
and  heavy  body  consists ;  and  if  he  were  next  asked  in 
what  substance  this  solidity  and  extension  themselves 
consisted,  he  would  find  himself  obliged  to  go  again  in 
quest  of  something  else — like  the  Indian  who,  saying  that 
the  world  was  supported  by  a  huge  elephant,  was  asked 
what  the  elephant  rested  on ;  to  which  his  answer  was,  a 


94  PHILOSOPHY    OF   THEISM. 

great  tortoise :  and  being  further  pressed  to  tell  what  sup- 
ported the  tortoise,  replied — something,  he  knew  not  what." 
And  as  with  Substance,  so  too  with  Power.  If  it  is  impos- 
sible to  suppose  a  quality  existing  without  substance — 
an  adjective  without  a  substantive — it  is  also  impossible 
to  suppose  change  without  a  cause  into  which  the  change 
must  be  refunded :  but  every  finite  cause  in  its  turn  de- 
mands another,  to  explain  its  own  entrance  into  existence, 
and  that  other,  if  finite,  equally  demands  a  cause  out  of 
which  it  has  emerged; — and  so  the  physical  regress,  im- 
posed by  intellectual  necessity,  is  lost  at  last  in  the  mys- 
tery of  Endlessness.  In  short,  we  find  ourselves  inevitably 
dissatisfied  with  what  is  finite — with  finite  places  in  space, 
finite  times  in  duration,  finite  substances,  and  finite  causes. 
However  far  we  go  there  is  an  intellectual  obligation  to  go 
further.  The  universe  of  our  experience  seems  to  extend 
into  infinity;  for  when  we  try  to  limit  it,  we  find  the 
limited  portion  still  related  to  reality  beyond, 
is  infinite  But  do  we  think  adequately  of  Divine  reality  when  we 
Eeahty  a^  think  of  it  as  a  quantity  ?  It  cannot  be  a  quantity,  if 
quantity  means  absolutely  rounded  Immensity,  or  abso- 
lutely rounded  Eternity  ?  An  indefinitely  large,  or  an 
indefinitely  long-continued,  finite  object  is  a  quantity ;  for 
it  has  its  boundary,  although  the  boundary  may  be  too 
remote  for  human  imagination  to  represent.  But  is  the 
Infinite  Eeality,  towards  which  we  are  carried  by  finite 
places,  durations,  qualities,  and  changes,  capable  of  quanti- 
tative measurement  ? 
Finite  Take  Space  to  begin  with.     Imagine  any  quantity  of 

spaces  and  Space  you  please,  however  vast — say  the  area  included 
Space.  within  the  orbit  of  the  planet  on  which  we  are  living. 
You  can  subtract  from  this  the  total  space  contained  say 
within  the  orbit  of  Mercury ;  you  have  to  that  extent 
reduced  the  finite  area  which  was  contained  within  the 
Earth's  orbit.  Or,  instead  of  subtracting,  you  can  add  to 
the  quantity  of  the  Earth's  orbit,  by  including  all  that  is 
within  the  vaster  expanse  contained  within  the  orbit  of 
Mars,  or  of  Jupiter,  or  of  the  whole  solar  system.  In 
short,  you  can  either  diminish  or  enlarge  the  quantity  of 
space   with   which   you   are   dealing  in    those   instances, 


PANTHEISTIC    NECESSITY.  95 

because  you  are  dealing  in  all  of  them  only  with  finite 
quantities,  which  are  all  imaginable  in  their  nature ;  even 
if  human  imagination  gives  only  an  obscure  image  of 
quantities  so  vast  or  so  small  as  to  be  imperfectly  con- 
ceived. In  this  we  are  holding  up  in  imagination  a 
finite  quantity  of  space ;  trying  to  picture  a  space  which, 
because  it  is  finite,  is  capable  of  being  diminished  or  in- 
creased in  extent.  Not  so  with  space,  when  lost  in  the 
mysterious  infinity  which  contradicts  sensuous  imagination. 
For  we  are  somehow  obliged  to  add  to  every  imaginable 
or  finite  space,  however  vast :  we  find  something  in  our 
minds  which  forbids  us  to  suppose  that  we  can  ever  reach 
a  space  with  no  space  beyond:  something  in  our  minds 
obliges  us,  too,  to  think  of  every  finite  or  imaginable 
space,  however  small,  as  still  divisible  into  parts  smaller 
than  itself.  We  are  obliged  to  believe  that  the  largest 
conceivable  finite  space  is  still  incomplete;  for  there 
must  be  a  larger :  we  cannot  but  suppose  that  the 
smallest  is  incompletely  divided;  for  there  must  be  a 
smaller.  A  noteworthy  fact  in  all  this  is,  that  each 
addition  is  believed  to  bring  us  no  nearer  to  the  Infin- 
ite Eeality  than  we  were  before  we  began  to  add,  and 
each  subtraction  to  carry  us  no  farther  aivay  from  it. 
The  addition  of  the  quantity  of  space  contained  within 
the  orbit  of  Mars  to  that  contained  within  the  orbit  of 
the  Earth  is  a  definite  addition  to  a  quantity;  because 
both  are  finite,  and  consist  of  finite  parts.  But  no  addi- 
tion of  parts  to  parts  brings  one  nearer  to  Immensity ; 
and  no  subtraction  carries  us  farther  away  from  it.  Finite 
spaces,  large  or  small, — large  enough  to  include  the  whole 
known  stellar  system,  or  small  enough  to  defy  the  most 
powerful  microscope, — these  spaces  are  confusedly  spoken 
of  as  "parts"  of  an  Infinite  which  transcends  relations  of 
part  and  whole.  We  suppose  as  much  more  space  be- 
yond the  largest  as  there  is  beyond  the  smallest  quantity. 
Stretch  imagination  to  the  utmost, — infinite  space  is  as 
much  out  of  reach — as  far  short  of  exhaustion,  as  it  was 
at  first — the  additions  being  all,  as  it  were,  irrelevant  to 
it.  In  the  light  of  reason,  the  spaces  of  sense  and  imagin- 
ation, large  or  small,  disappear  in  Infinite  Keality. 


96 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Finite 
times  and 

Eternity. 


Space  in  this  way  is  one  avenue  towards  the  Infinite  in 
relation  to  quantity.  Turn  next  to  Duration.  This  is 
another  avenue  which,  perhaps  even  more  than  space, 
brings  infinity  home  to  us  all.  However  far  back  in 
time  we  make  imagination  travel,  we  are  obliged  to  sup- 
pose a  past  still  more  remote ;  however  far  forward  we 
look,  we  are  obliged  to  suppose  a  yet  remoter  future. 
We  can  set  no  boundary,  either  in  the  past  or  in  the 
future,  to  the  succession  of  changes  by  which  the  idea 
of  duration  is  awakened  in  human  consciousness :  when 
we  imagine  any  period,  long  or  short,  our  minds  oblige 
us  still  to  imagine  a  duration,  longer  or  shorter,  by  the 
addition  or  subtraction  of  which  the  first  is  increased  or 
diminished.  But  just  as  space  at  last  disappears  in  Im- 
mensity, so  time  at  last  disappears  in  Endlessness.  Un- 
beginning  time  does  not  admit  of  addition,  nor  does 
unending  time  admit  of  subtraction.  The  Eternity  in 
which  each  is  lost  does  not  admit  of  parts,  although  sen- 
suous imagination  has  to  picture  it  as  divisible.  We  are 
as  far  from  exhausting  Eternity  when  we  have  travelled 
back  millions  of  years  as  we  were  when  we  commenced 
our  journey  into  past  time  ;  and  no  passage  of  time  now 
elapsed  diminishes  the  endlessness  that  seems  to  be  in 
front  of  us.  The  unbeginning  past  seems  to  misleading 
imagination  as  if  it  were  a  quantity  subtracted  from  the 
unending  future,  it  too  being  a  supposed  quantity:  thought 
is  lost  in  an  Infinity  greater  than  either  the  unbeginning 
past  or  the  unending  future,  yet  somehow  containing  each 
of  the  two  as  its  parts.  Add  to  any  finite  time  and  we 
are  brought  nearer  to  a  yet  longer  finite  time ;  but  we 
are  brought  no  nearer  to  Eternity.  Time,  necessarily  in- 
capable of  being  completed  at  either  end,  makes  imagina- 
tion commit  suicide  when  it  tries  to  exhaust  Duration,  in 
the  unpicturable  region  in  which 

"  immutably  survive, 
For  our  support,  the  measures  and  the  forms 
Which  an  abstract  intelligence  supplies, 
Wliose  kingdom  is  where  time  and  space  are  not." 


So  it  is  that  the  space  by  which  I  am  now  surrounded, 


PANTHEISTIC    NECESSITY.  97 

and  the  time  that  is  included  within  the  present  hour,  both 
seem  to  be  merged,  the  one  in  unexpanded  Immensity  and 
the  other  in  timeless  Eternity.  The  understanding,  meas- 
uring by  sense  and  imagination,  tries  to  transcend  itself, 
and  in  doing  so  is  always  lost  at  last  in  the  Infinite  Reality. 

How  to  reconcile  finite  places  with  the  Immensity  in  Temporal 
which  place  seems  lost,  or  finite  times  with  the  Eternity  ^Xng? 
in  which  duration  seems  to  disappear, — the  placed  with  an  illusion, 
the  placeless,  the  timed  or  dated  with  the  timeless,— is  the  ^^f- 
mystery  of  an  experience  which,  like  ours,  is  conditioned  caiiy  iutei- 
by   place  and   time,   in   a  way   that   must   always  leave  l^j^J 
thought  at  the  last  under  a  sense  of  intellectual  incom-  cetemitatis, 
pleteness  and  dissatisfaction.      The   pantheistic  Monism  ^cfe?^fa< 
of  Spinoza  is  like  a  superhuman  attempt  to  think  the 
universe  of  reality,  called  Nature  or  God,  at  a  point  of 
view  where  past  and  future  disappear — all  undetermined 
in  time, — sub  specie  cetemitatis,  as  at  the  eternal  centre — 
not  in  succession,  but  under  abstract  geometrical  relations. 
It  represents  God  as  the  boundless  geometrical  Unit,  to 
express  which  in  finite  modes,  mathematical  figures,  with 
their  changeless  because  intellectually  necessary  relations, 
are    substituted    for  actual  succession   or  change,  which 
Spinoza  relegates  to   the  illusions  of  finite  imagination. 
The   Unica  Substantia,  in  its  two  infinite   attributes,  is 
really  unchangeable,  —  undifferentiated  by   the  mislead- 
ing idea  of  succession.     Intellect  knows   nothing  either 
of  temporal  change  or  of  antecedent  purpose.     Effects  and 
designs  are  both  as  alien  to  the  Spinozistic  conception  of  the 
Real  as  they  are  to  the  abstract  conceptions  of  geometry. 
They  belong  to  illusory  sensuous  imagination  ;  which  with 
Spinoza  is   another   name   for   ordinary  unphilosoplrised 
experience.     The  universe  being  the  absolute  necessity  of 
reason,  could  not  be  other  than  it  is ;  and  it  is  misleading 
fancy  that  supposes  it  a  theatre  of  change,  and  of  con- 
trivances in  which  means  are  arbitrarily  chosen  to  reach 
ends.     Spinoza's  universe,  seen  sub  specie  cetemitatis,  is  as 
empty  of  cause  and  purpose  as  the  multiplication- table,  or 
the  demonstrations  of  Euclid.     The  illusion  of  temporal 
and  dynamical  succession  is  exchanged  for  timeless  statical 
certainty. 

G 


98 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


With  Spin- 
oza nothing 
really  hap- 
pens :  all 
exists  sim- 
ultane- 
ously. 


Two  ways 
of  conceiv- 
ing quan- 
tity. 


The  ab- 
surdity of 
contin- 
gency. 


He  who  tries  to  think  out  the  Keality  in  which  he  lives 
and  moves  and  has  his  being,  in  sympathy  with  Spinoza, 
must  therefore  think  it  out,  not  as  imaginable  succes- 
sion, or  physical  evolution,  but  as  unimaginable  Eternity. 
For  imagination  of  succession  is  to  the  reality  like  trees  or 
houses  as  seen  from  the  window  of  a  carriage  in  motion. 
They  seem  to  be  moving,  but  the  motion  is  in  our  selves. 
The  supposition  that  change  is  real  is  the  delusion  of  the 
uneducated.  Nothing  happens :  all  exists  simultaneously. 
The  past  is  not  really  past:  the  future  is  not  still  un- 
real. Thought  is  not  successive :  succession  arises  only 
when  imagination  invades  the  province  of  science.  All 
is  Now.  Under  the  geometrical  necessitated  conception, 
history  and  experience  logically  dissolve  in  illusion  :  what 
has  not  yet  happened  is  as  real  as  what  has  happened ; 
what  is  future  and  what  is  past  is  identified  in  what  must 
be.     Nothing  really  happens  :  all  exists  absolutely. 

It  is  instructive  to  follow  Spinoza  as  he  sublimates 
finite  things,  fallaciously  individualised  by  imagination, 
out  of  which  the  illusory  world  of  common  consciousness 
is  supposed  to  emerge,  but  which  reason  refunds  into  the 
One  Divine  Substance  in  which  all  things  exist  in  absolute 
perfection.  Substance,  so  far  as  it  is  infinite,  cannot,  he 
argues,  be  added  to  or  divided.  If  asked  why  we  are  apt 
to  suppose  the  contrary,  he  would  answer,  that  quantity 
may  be  conceived  either  in  imagination  or  according  to 
pure  intellect.  If  we  regard  quantity,  as  it  appears  to 
imagination,  we  find  it  divisible,  or  made  up  of  parts ; 
but  if  we  regard  it  intellectually,  "  which  is  difficult 
for  us  to  do,"  it  can  be  demonstrated  that  it  must  be 
indivisible. 

Again,  the  universe  of  reality  must  be  eternally  neces- 
sary, as  otherwise  we  are  involved  in  the  contradiction 
that  Nature  might  be  different  from  what  must  be.  What 
we  call  contingency  and  change  is  the  issue  of  an  imper- 
fect comprehension  of  infinite  reality,  under  the  delusive 
form  of  sense  or  imagination.  What  really  exists  cannot 
be  contingent :  it  seems  so  only  because  it  is  viewed  in 
the  light  of  deficient  knowledge.  Things  are  perfect  in 
their  reality,  for  what  is  real  is  divine.     But  even   the 


PANTHEISTIC    NECESSITY.  99 

opinion  which  refers  all  to  capricious  Will  is  nearer  truth, 
according  to  Spinoza,  than  the  supposition  that  things  are 
what  they  are,  for  the  sake  of  any  supposed  good  thereby 
secured  to  man,  or  of  which  man  is  the  final  cause.  For 
this  last  supposes  an  end  independent  of  God,  or  to  which 
God  is  only  a  means. 

The  favourite  prejudice  that  a  humanly  related  purpose  Pantheistic 
or  final  cause  is  the  constitutive  principle  of  existence  is  Jf^f^ 
what  Spinoza  by  his  demonstrations  labours  to  remove,  that  the 
Man,  unphilosophically  disposed  to  think  things  in  succes-  *\^ed  iS 
sion — not  sub  specie  cetemitatis — takes  his  own  finite  and  withadapt- 
imaginable  experience  as  the  measure  of  reality,  and  looks  atk?nJ-j 
at  reality  as  event,  or  historically  ;   not  sub  ratione,  or  reiate  to 
intellectually.     Magnifying  the   importance   of   his   own  J"™^ 
feelings   and  desires,  he   supposes    that  the   final    cause  ir 
of  existence  must  be  human  happiness.     As  pleasure  is 
the  motive   of   his   own   actions,  he   comes   to  interpret 
Nature  or  God  as  a  system  of  means  intended  to  secure 
this  for  man ;  which  involves  the  supposition  of  an  an- 
thropomorphic Euler  of  Nature,  endowed  with  a  capri- 
cious freedom,  disposed  to  act  emotionally  in  this  way  or 
that ;  who  does  nothing  in  vain,  that  is  to  say  who  does 
nothing  that  is  inconsistent  with  man's  happiness.     And 
when  experience   contradicts  this  human  fancy,  by  the 
miseries   to  which    men   are   subject,  then,  rather   than 
surrender   the    childish   hypothesis  of   a  reality   that    is 
determined    by    human    interests,    its    anthropomorphic 
advocates  surest  man's  ignorance,  and  conclude  that  the 
rule  of  the  gods  somehow  surpasses  our  comprehension. 
This  favourite  refuge  of  narrow  minds,  Spinoza  thinks, 
would  have  perpetually  kept  the  human  race  in  darkness 
if  mathematics,  which  excludes  regard  to  causes,  either 
final  or  efficient,  had  not  offered  a  higher  criterion   of 
truth,  and  made  philosophers  acknowledge  the  necessary 
nature  of  All.      For  a  mathematical  conception  of  the 
universe  shows — so  he   argues — that  God  or  Nature,  as 
perfect,  can  be  subordinated  to  no  human  end  :  to  sup- 
pose  the  universe   charged  with  purpose  is  a  fiction  of 
imagination,  not  a  scientific  conception.     It  is  because  in 
the  eye  of  imagination  the  worth  of  things  is  determined 


100  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

by  their  human  relations  and  utilities,  that  the  irrational 
prejudices  arise  which  are  expressed  by  the  words  good 
and  evil,  vice  and  sin,  praise  and  blame,  order  and  disorder. 
"  Good  "  is  the  term  popularly  applied  to  whatever  is  sup- 
posed to  be  in  the  interest  of  man,  or,  like  ritual  or  wor- 
ship, in  the  imagined  interest  of  God.  Ignorant  of  things 
in  their  rationale,  men  imagine  an  order  of  their  own. 
When  things  are  so  arranged  that  they  can  be  easily 
imagined,  they  call  them  well  arranged,  and  when  placed 
otherwise,  they  call  them  confused ;  as  if  the  order  were 
something  in  the  things,  and  not  in  their  own  imagina- 
tion. They  suppose  that  God  must  create  the  universe 
so  that  they  can  easily  interpret  it;  weakly  attributing 
their  own  imagination  to  God,  and  dreaming  that  God  has 
disposed  all  out  of  consideration  for  human  imagination. 
Spinoza  with  sorrow  sees  human  life  crowded  with  ex- 
amples of  finite  imagination  substituted  for  the  infinite 
reality  of  divine  reason,  and  endless  controversies  as  the 
consequence.  Men  imagine  without  truly  understanding, 
If  they  truly  understood  things,  they  would  be  all  agreed, 
although  not  necessarily  pleased.  The  perfection  of  things 
is  to  be  judged  by  what  they  must  be,  not  by  the  ways  in 
which  they  satisfy  or  offend  men. 

A  pan-  A  dilemma  confronts  this  pantheistic  unity  and  neces- 

theistic  g^y.  Either  we  reduce  individual  things  and  persons  to 
dilemma.  ^.^  snadows?  and  then  tne  undetermined  Substance  or 
Deity  of  Spinoza  comes  instead — a  featureless  unity ;  or 
we  must  assume  that  the  data  and  rational  implicates  of 
our  experience  are  real — so  far  as  they  go— and  that  God 
is  incompletely  yet  really  revealed  in  our  physical  and 
spiritual  experience.  For  determining  between  these 
alternatives  we  must  have  recourse  to  facts  and  the  final 
constitution  of  the  human  mind.  Homo  mensnra  or  nulla 
mensura  are  the  alternatives  that  meet  us  at  last.  It  is 
by  means  of  monads,  says  Leibniz,  that  Spinoza  is  refuted  : 
Spinoza  would  be  right  if  there  were  no  monads:  in.  that 
case  all  that  is  not  God  would  be  evanescent  accident  of 
fancy.  Let  us  substitute  persons,  or  moral  agents,  for 
monads,  and  say  that  if  there  were  no  inspired  self-acting 


PANTHEISTIC    NECESSITY.  101 

persons,  a  necessitated  physical  universe  would  be  the  only 
revelation  of  God  ? 

For  our  moral  experience  of  remorse  and  responsibility  Our  moral 
is   an  insurmountable   obstruction   to  pantheistic   unity.  e^^ce 
Logical  pantheism  is  inconsistent  with  human  ideals  of  the  pan- 
moral  goodness,  and  with  real  evil.     God  must  be  per-  ^^nd 
feet ;    therefore  whatever   and  whoever  exists   must  be  necessity. 
perfect.     Nero  and  Borgia,  Socrates  and  Jesus,  are  alike 
and  equally  divine.     Now  if  we  find  something  existing 
which  ought  not  to  exist,  and  which  has  come  into  ex- 
istence  by  no  divine   necessity,  we   find  what   disturbs 
Spinoza's  theory.     But  the  existence  of  this  disturbance 
is  witnessed  to  by  remorse,  which  is  as  much  a  necessity 
of  moral  reason  as  physical  causality  is  of  scientific  reason ; 
and  neither  reason  can  be  proved  to  be  inconsistent  with 
the  other.     We  find  in  the  universe  that  of  which  the 
Universal  Power  cannot  be  the  origin — unless  either  the 
Universal  Power  is  evil,  or  evil  only  one  of  the  illusions 
of   human  imagination.      Individual   persons   cannot  be 
individually  real,  we  are  told,  because  this  would  be  in- 
consistent with  pantheistic  definitions  of  substance  and 
reality:   they  must   be   modifications    of   the   One   Sub- 
stance.    This  may  be  after  all  only  a  dispute  about  de- 
finitions.     Their  responsibility  implies  that  in  point  of 
fact  persons  must  be  treated  as  if  they  were  individual : 
we  must  so  treat  them  in  our  moral  judgments  and  in 
our  conduct :  men  measure  men  by  rewards  and  punish- 
ments :  whatever  our  speculative  definitions  may  be,  duty 
is  related  to  men's  conduct  in  a  way  that  makes  them  re- 
sponsible for  what  they  do  personally.     What  are  called 
by  pantheism  "modifications"  of  "the  same  Substance" 
bear  to  each  other  moral  relations,  and  the  "  modifications  " 
differ  from  one  another  in  their  degrees  of  goodness. 

While  Spinoza  insists  upon  the  identity  of  theological  Spinozistic 
with  mathematical  necessity,  he  seems  to  attain  in  much  f0^nstr&' 
of  his  reasoning  only  to  the  verbal  certainty  that  depends  chiefly 
upon  arbitrary  definitions  of  words.     He  banishes  efficient  verbal- 
and  final  causes,  change,  and  temporal  succession,  as  arti- 
fices of  fancy.     He  replaces  them  with  names  and  their 
definitions ;  and  the  names  so  defined  are  used  in  demon- 


102 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Undiffer- 
entiated 
unity 
illusory. 


strations  in  which  the  conclusions  only  make  explicit  what 
was  already  arbitrarily  introduced  into  the  definitions. 
The  system  is  a  logical  evolution  of  what  is  contained  in 
the  connotation  of  certain  words  of  extreme  abstraction. 
And  the  result  shows  chiefly  argumentative  connection 
between  dogmatically  assumed  definitions  and  conclu- 
sions. "  It  is  possible,"  as  has  been  said,  "  by  devising 
a  set  of  arbitrary  definitions,  to  form  a  science  which, 
although  professedly  conversant  about  moral,  political, 
physical,  or  any  other  ideas,  should  yet  be  as  certain  as 
geometry.  It  is  of  no  moment  whether  the  ideas  cor- 
respond with  facts  or  not,  provided  they  do  not  express 
absolute  impossibilities,  and  be  not  inconsistent  with 
each  other.  From  the  definitions  a  series  of  consequences 
may  be  deduced  by  the  most  unexceptionable  reasoning, 
and  the  results  will  be  perfectly  analogous  to  mathe- 
matical propositions :  but  the  terms  true  and  false  cannot 
be  properly  applied  to  them."  Nominal  definitions  are  the 
principles  of  this  verbal  science.  The  terms  true  and  false 
therein  refer  to  verbal  consistency,  not  to  correspondence 
with  what  is  real. 

That  it  refunds  all  into  undifferentiated  Unity,  emptied 
of  events,  is  an  unsurmountable  difficulty  in  this  thorough- 
going Impersonalism  or  Pantheism.  It  vainly  asks  human 
intelligence  to  conquer  the  empty  region  towards  which 
we  are  carried,  when  we  try  to  surrender  place  for  Im- 
mensity, time  for  Eternity,  substances  revealed  in  experi- 
ence for  the  Eternal  Substance,  caused  effects  for  the  final 
mystery  involved  in  Power.  It  demands  an  impersonal 
faculty  in  which  the  individual  person  must  be  lost  in  an 
illusory  unity  ;  and  to  meet  this,  pantheistic  thinkers  have 
been  reduced  to  hard  straits.  This  difficulty  is  met  vari- 
ously :  by  some  in  the  hypothesis  of  a  transcendental 
vision  or  inspiration,  which  can  hardly  be  distinguished 
from  blind  feeling ;  by  others  in  an  avowedly  emotional 
experience  suited  to  the  less  robust  intelligence  and 
dreamy  temperament  of  the  more  indolent  and  unpracti- 
cal races  of  mankind.  Plotinus,  in  the  ancient  world,  and 
Schelling  in  this  century,  may  be  taken,  each  in  his  own 
way,   as  advocates   of   a    transcendental   intuition  which 


PANTHEISTIC    NECESSITY.  103 

seems  to  resolve  at  last  into  unintelligible  feeling,  or  to 
be  sublimated  into  superconsciousness — as  in  the  Nirvana 
of  the  Buddhist,  weary  of  a  perplexed  and  painful  con- 
scious experience.  We  find  Plotinus  asserting  a  claim  to 
an  ecstatic  vision  of  the  Infinite  Unity — into  which  he  is 
reported  to  have  acknowledged  that  he  had  risen  only 
four  times  in  his  life — a  vision  or  feeling  which  may 
have  realised  Spinoza's  indifferentiate  Substance — but  in  a 
fashion  which  necessarily  forbid  any  report  of  the  in- 
effable result.  It  is  told  of  him  that  in  his  pantheistic 
enthusiasm  he  disclaimed  his  own  birth,  looking  with 
contempt  on  the  contents  of  space,  and  ashamed  of  his 
appearance  in  subordination  to  measurements  of  time. 
The  "ecstasy"  must  be  an  empty  name  for  an  illusory 
superconsciousness,  from  which  all  that  human  intelligence 
can  apprehend  is  withdrawn.  Schelling's  vaunted  intuition 
of  the  Undifferentiate  is  beset  by  like  contradictions. 

On  the  whole  it  seems  impossible,  under  the  conditions 
of  human  experience  and  understanding,  to  connect  in 
philosophic  imagination  Infinite  with  finite ;  temporal 
succession  with  the  Eternal  Now.  It  is  impossible,  under 
human  conditions,  for  scientific  understanding  to  conquer 
an  Infinite  which  refuses  to  enter  as  a  rounded  object  into 
experience.  It  is  impossible  to  see  All  as  All  is  visible 
at  the  divine  centre.  The  alternatives  for  man  are  Homo 
mensura  or  Nulla  mensura.  The  former  is  adapted  to 
his  intellectual  place  in  the  hierarchy  of  existence,  inter- 
mediate between  Nescience  and  Omniscience. 


104 


LECTUEE   V. 


FINAL    SCEPTICISM:    DAVID    HUME. 


Summary.  In  preceding  lectures  we  have  passed  through  various 
stages  of  thought  regarding  man's  final  problem.  In  the 
first  stage  we  were  inquisitive.  What  sort  of  universe  is 
this  in  which  I  find  myself  living  and  moving  and  having 
my  being  ?  Is  the  Universal  Power  finally  good  or  finally 
evil  ?  In  what  sort  of  reality  do  I  find  myself ;  and  what 
is  to  be  the  issue  of  the  faith- venture,  which — without  my 
leave  asked  or  given — I  find  myself  obliged  to  make,  in 
being  obliged  to  live  ?  The  next  stage  was  assumptive. 
I  found  myself  somehow  bound  to  take  for  granted  that 
consciousness  means  myself;  and  myself,  too,  percipient  of 
a  world  outside  of  me  ;  moreover,  that  this  inner  and  outer 
reality  is  unconditionally  dependent  upon  the  Universal 
Power  called  God.  In  the  third  stage  I  was  concerned  with 
the  outside  world,  or  with  materialism  in  its  claim  to  be 
the  only  interpretation  of  the  universal  reality  into  which 
I  was  ushered  when  I  began  to  be  conscious.  The  limita- 
tion led  to  the  conclusion  that  men  are  only  ephemeral 
material  organisms,  composed  of  molecules  in  motion,  each 
organism  conscious  while  the  organism  lasts,  but  its  short 
self-conscious  life  only  a  passing  incident  in  the  universal 
molecular  history  which  makes  up  all  that  exists.  The 
fourth  stage  of  thought  through  which  we  passed  was  in- 
trospective. Here  we  found  that  a  universe  resolved  into 
molecular  motions  was  not  so  finally  satisfying  to  reason 
as  it  seemed  at  first;  and  that  instead  of  the  percipient 
ego  being  an  issue  of   molecularly  constituted  movable 


FINAL    SCEPTICISM.  105 

things,  the  real  existence  of  molecularly  constituted 
movable  things  was  unintelligible  without  active  and 
percipient  agents.  Accordingly,  instead  of  supposing 
with  the  materialist  that  I  am  only  an  insignificant 
organism  among  other  organisms,  in  a  wholly  outward 
universe,  it  seemed  truer  that  outward  things,  including 
my  visible  organism,  exist  in  my  mental  experience  ;  or 
at  any  rate  that  they  depend  for  their  existence  and  ac- 
tivity on  some  percipient  mind  that  is  conscious  of  experi- 
ence. Even  Panegoism  seemed  to  have  more  to  say  for 
its  proposition — that  the  outward  world  is  all  existing  in 
me,  than  Panmaterialism  had  for  its  proposition  —  that 
percipient  life  is  only  a  physical  event,  in  the  endless 
history  of  an  otherwise  unconscious  universe  of  mole- 
cules and  aggregates  of  molecules,  in  motion  and 
evolution.  Still  deeper  reflection,  however,  showed  the 
insufficiency  both  of  this  dogmatic  materialism  and 
this  dogmatic  egoism,  by  reducing  each  to  an  absurdity, 
and  dissolving  both  in  final  doubt.  Neither  the  molecules 
moving  in  space  and  time,  nor  the  perceptions  in  which  I 
was  conscious  of  myself,  I  now  saw,  could  be  the  last 
word  about  the  universe  of  reality.  They  and  I  were 
ephemeral,  not  absolute,  when  regarded  as  data  contingent 
in  experience.  And  as  nothing  not  absolute  could  be  the 
final  reality,  one  began  to  think  of  matter  and  the  con- 
scious ego  as  interdependent  modes  of  Divine  Being,  in 
which  they  exist  in  undifferentiated  unity ;  or,  escaping 
from  the  geometrical  conceptions  of  Spinoza,  as  transi- 
tory phenomena,  evolved  by  inscrutable  Universal  Power. 
But  after  further  thought  the  pantheistic  unity  seemed 
to  dissolve  under  inevitable  presuppositions  of  human 
life,  necessary  implicates  of  our  experience,  which  make 
us  unable  to  think  that  evil  is  good,  or  to  see  deity  in 
disorder,  virtue  in  crime,  and  truth  in  error.  Moreover, 
if  human  experiences,  disparaged  as  delusions,  are  modes 
of  Divine  Being,  how  can  they  be  delusions  ?  How  can 
there  be  delusion  if  all  is  perfect  or  divine  ? 

Universal    Scepticism    seems    to    be    the    reductio    ad 
absuvdum  of  each  of   the   three    philosophical    attempts 


egoism,  and 
Pantheism 


106  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

Universal     to  reduce  to  unity  that  triplicity  which  is  dimly  pre- 
Scepticism   SUpp0Sed    in    the    primary    data    of    spontaneous    faith. 
tioadat    Universal  Materialism,  Panegoism,  Pantheism  —  each  so 
surdum       far  true  in  what  it  affirms — are  all   challenged  as  inco- 
Material-     herent  expressions  of  human  experience ;  or  because  they 
ism,  Pan-  ^  reach    a    verbal    consistency   through   inadequate    recog- 
nition  of   actual   facts    in    nature    and   in   man.      In  the 
ages    materialist    and    egoist    atheism    and    empiricism, 
as  well  as  pantheistic  necessity,  reappear  in  new  forms; 
for  each,  so   far,  represents   what  is  real,  and   each   has 
indirectly  contributed  to  deeper  and  truer  insight.     It  is 
probable  that  for  some  minds  each  may  be  found  satis- 
fying in  the  future  as  in  the  past.     But  each,  when  boldly 
thought  out,  leads  to  Pyrrhonism  or  total  doubt. 
Nescience         Final   Nescience — doubt   about   everything — and    the 
or  total      mental  paralysis  involved  in  this— is  accordingly  the  next 
Scepticism.  condition  of  mind  we  liave  t0  enter  into.     Is  it  not  the 

refutation  of  all  the  three  Monist  systems,  because  it  is 
their  inevitable  issue  ?     And  must  we  in  the  end  subside 
into  the  impotence   of   total  scepticism,  or  is  there  still 
another  attitude   possible  for   man   as   regards  the   final 
meaning  of  his  life  ? 
is  the  final       Sceptical  negation  meantime   succeeds  to  the    Monist 
problem  of  systems  which,  after  trial,  we  have  been  obliged  to  reject 
HfehT        as  inadequate  and  incoherent.     The  inquisitive  mood  in 
everyway    which   we  started   would   now   seem   to  be  fruitless.      A 
insoluble  ?    ^.^  of  interr0gation  becomes  the  symbol  of  human  life, 
in  relation  to  the  ego,  the  outside  universe,  and  God.     I 
cannot  tell  what  sort  of  universe  this  may  be  into  which 
I  have  been  ushered.    Its  physical  sequences  even  in  ay  all 
be  untrustworthy,  and  therefore  uninterpretable.     Passing 
appearances  may  or  may  not  be  the  issue  of  innumerable 
molecules  in  motion :  they  may  or  may  not  be  only  states 
of  the  one  conscious  ego,  terms  of  my  changing  life :  the 
outward   world  and   the  conscious  self  may  or  may  not 
be  only  modes  of  the  One  Substance.     The  final  reality  is 
hid  beneath  both  the  molecular  and  the  conscious  appear- 
ances—  concealed  rather  than  revealed  by  them;  for  is 
not  this  what  the  pantheistic  phase  of  thought  about  the 
universe  in  the  end  amounts  to?     I  find  no  issue  other 


FINAL    SCEPTICISM.  107 

than  total  nescience  for  abstract  pantheistic  reasoning,  or 
for  pantheistic  feeling  of  Infinite.  If  neither  reasoned 
nor  emotional  pantheism  gives  an  adequate  self- con- 
sistent account  of  experience  and  its  implicates,  it 
leaves  me  finally  in  doubt.  Whether  there  is  or^  is 
not  morally  trustworthy  Power  at  the  centre  of  exist- 
ence now  appears  to  be  a  question  less  capable  of  being 
brought  to  an  issue  than  the  question  about  a  plurality 
of  inhabited  worlds.  Whether  the  Universal  Power  is 
personal  seems  more  indeterminable  than  the  question 
about  the  existence  of  persons  in  other  planets.  Im- 
proved experimental  apparatus  may  some  day  bring  one 
or  more  of  the  planets  so  within  human  experience  that 
men  can  determine  whether  or  not  it  is  the  scene  of 
an  intelligent  population ;  wider  experience  can  never 
relieve  the  final  incomprehensibility  of  the  infinite  uni- 
verse in  which  men  awaken  into  consciousness,  if  it  is  an 
incomprehensibility  that  is  imposed  by  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  a  human  knowledge  of  the  concrete  universe.  The 
supposition  is  self-contradictory,  that  man  can  reach  the 
Divine  centre  of  the  All,  so  as  to  have  infinite  reality 
within  his  intellectual  vision,  and  then  find — on  this  con- 
dition only — what  the  Universal  Power  is,  and  whether 
trustworthy,  and  ours  therefore  a  trustworthy  intelli- 
gence. Paralysed  thought  withdraws  the  final  problem 
altogether,  as  the  suggestion  of  obstinate  unreflecting 
delusion. 

To  look  at  the  universe  thus  is,  according  to  a  common  Agnosti- 
expression,  to  look  at  it  agnostically.  This  agnosticism  cism* 
expresses  a  final  conception  of  life  that  has  returned 
into  fashion  in  the  nineteenth  century.  "  When  I  reached 
intellectual  maturity,"  Huxley  tells  us,  "  I  began  to  ask 
myself  whether  I  was  an  atheist,  a  theist,  or  a  pantheist. 
I  found,  when  I  put  this  question  to  myself,  that  the 
more  I  reflected,  the  less  ready  was  the  answer.  At  last 
I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  I  had  neither  lot  nor  part 
with  any  of  these  denominations,  except  the  last.  The  one 
thing  in  which  most  of  these  good  people  were  agreed  was 
the  one  thing  in  which  I  differed  from  them.  They  were 
quite  sure  that  they  had  attained  a  certain  Gnosis— had, 


108 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


more  or  less  successfully,  solved  the  problem  of  existence : 
while  I  was  quite  sure  I  had  not,  and  had  a  pretty  strong- 
conviction  that  the  problem  was  insoluble.  And  with 
Hume  and  Kant  on  my  side,  I  could  not  think  myself 
presumptuous  in  holding  fast  by  that  opinion.  So  I 
took  thought,  and  invented  what  I  conceived  to  be  the 
appropriate  title  of  agnostic.  It  came  into  my  head  as 
suggestively  antithetic  to  the  gnostic  of  church  history, 
who  professed  to  know  so  much  about  the  very  things 
of  which  I  was  ignorant."  Agnosticism  is  otherwise 
described,  by  the  inventor  of  the  name,  as  a  method  of 
attaining  knowledge,  rather  than  a  state  of  ignorance  about 
the  foundation  of  human  life  and  the  universe.  It 
is  a  method,  we  are  told,  "the  essence  of  which  lies  in 
the  application  of  a  single  principle,  which  is  the  funda- 
mental axiom  of  modern  science.  Positively  this  prin- 
ciple may  be  thus  expressed : — In  matters  of  the  intellect, 
follow  your  reason  as  far  as  it  will  take  you,  without 
regard  to  any  other  consideration.  And  negatively: — 
In  matters  of  the  intellect,  do  not  pretend  that  conclu- 
sions are  certain  which  are  not  demonstrated  or  demon- 
strable." Agnosticism,  according  to  this  account^  is  a 
term  invented  to  express  dutiful  submission  of  belief  to 
the  limits  imposed  by  evidence — rejection  of  all  asser- 
tions and  denials  that  are  inconsistent  with  intellectual 
integrity. 
Agnosti-  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  intellectual  integrity  can  be 

cism  some-  assume(j  as  the  distinctive  mark  of  total  agnosticism 
without  question-begging.  In  the  present  case  the  very 
point  in  dispute  is,  whether  any  assertion  about  the 
foundation  and  purpose  of  human  life  is  reasonable.  That 
many  unreasonable  assumptions  and  conclusions,  positive 
and  negative,  about  the  sort  of  universe  we  are  born  into, 
its  principle  or  want  of  principle,  its  moral  purpose  or 
want  of  purpose,  have  more  or  less  prevailed,  is  a  super- 
fluous truth.  But  it  still  remains  for  proof  that  all  asser- 
tions of  this  sort  must  be  unreasonable.  To  assume  this 
at  the  outset,  in  a  question-begging  definition,  is  to  deter- 
mine a  matter  of  fact,  not  by  proof,  but  by  an  arbitrary 
assumption. 


times  a 
question 
begging 
term. 


FINAL    SCEPTICISM.  109 


It  is  of  course  true  that  professedly  theistic  concep-  Fallacies  of 

clogmal ' 
theolo- 


tions  of  the  universe  have  given  birth  to  fallacious  reason-  d< 


ing.  Theologians  have  raised  metaphysical  arguments,  in  gians 
which  disputed  facts  were  determined  by  logical  manipu- 
lation of  abstract  propositions ;  or  conclusions  have  been 
the  outcome  of  irrelevant  facts.  Nay,  without  even  the 
semblance  of  an  appeal  to  reason,  theism  has  been  sus- 
tained by  a  traditional  reverence  for  books  accepted  as  in- 
fallible, or  for  the  dogmas  of  an  ecclesiastical  society  which 
claims  infallibility.  In  this  the  final  appeal  to  reason  in 
experience  may  be  evaded.  Abstract  propositions  cannot 
show  us  concrete  fact:  at  the  most  they  can  show  what 
must  be  fact,  in  case  conditions  are  fulfilled  of  which 
only  experience  can  inform  us.  So  it  is  argued  by  the 
agnostic  that  books  are  worthless  when  they  tell  what 
can  never  come  within  the  range  of  human  experience. 
No  man  can  ever  actually  see  or  hear  God ;  or  see  those 
who  saw  Him,  or  who  heard  His  voice.  Tradition  re- 
ports the  occasional  occurrence  of  physical  miracles ;  and 
adaptations  of  means  to  ends  in  animal  organisms  are 
familiar  to  us.  But  how  can  man  know  enough  about  the 
ultimate  constitution  of  the  universe,  and  the  powers  that 
may  be  at  work  in  it,  to  justify  him  in  concluding  that 
the  reported  signs  and  wonders  must  be  understood  to 
mean  interference  for  a  purpose  by  the  Universal  Power  ? 
And  as  for  Paley  and  the  divinely  constructed  organisms, 
we  now  know  enough  about  the  natural  history  of  cos- 
mical  change  to  justify  the  conclusion  that  elaborate 
organisms  are  the  gradual  issue  of  natural  law ;  so  that 
divine  interference  to  produce  them  seems  superfluous. 
It  is  unnecessary,  the  agnostic  would  say,  to  prove  the 
constant  absence  of  supernatural  interference ;  the  proof  of 
a  negative  is  difficult :  it  is  enough  that  there  is  no  proof 
of  more  than  natural  sequence;  the  admission  of  more 
without  reason  is  unreasonable.  Least  of  all  can  the 
burden  of  human  life  be  rested  on  the  dogma  that  what  is 
good  for  man  must  therefore  be  true ;  nor  can  a  belief 
be  reasonably  adopted  only  because  it  relieves  desires 
and  aspirations  of  the  believer;  or  because  its  reception 
promises  to  make  its  recipients  happier.     To  make  the 


110 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  scien- 
tific dogma 
that  man 
must  for 
ever  remain 
ignorant  of 
God  re- 
verses the 
teaching 
of  Bacon, 
Descartes, 
and  Locke. 


wishes  of  men  a  test  of  the  reality  of  what  they  wish 
for,  is  to  reverse  the  method  of  science,  and  to  substitute 
indulgence  in  agreeable  anticipation  for  intellectual  ^  in- 
sight." Unexplained  human  feelings  are  not  revelations 
of  God. 

Modern  Agnosticism,  which  knows  that  man  must  for 
ever  find  the  foundation  of  his  life  and  experience  an  in- 
soluble mystery,  is  in  curious  contrast  with  the  certainty 
that  was  claimed  for  God  by  the  illustrious  spokesmen  of 
philosophy  in  the  early  period  of  modern  philosophical 
revival.  I  hope  that  to  refer  to  them  here  is  not  an  un- 
reasonable recognition  of  authority.  According  to  Bacon, 
for  example,  "depth  in  philosophy  alone  bringeth  men's 
minds  to  religion  ;  for  while  the  mind  of  man  looketh  upon 
second  causes  scattered,  it  may  sometimes  rest  in  them, 
and  go  no  further;  but  when  it  beholdeth  the  chain  of 
them  confederate,  and  linked  together,  it  must  needs  fly 
to  Providence  and  Deity."  Then  hear  Descartes  :  "  With 
respect  to  God,  if  I  were  not  preoccupied  by  prejudices, 
and  my  thought  beset  on  all  sides  by  the  continual  pre- 
sence of  images  of  sensible  objects,  I  should  know  nothing 
sooner  nor  more  easily  than  the  fact  of  God's  existence. 
For  is  there  any  truth  more  clear  than  the  existence  of 
the  Supreme  Being,  or  God,  seeing  that  it  is  to  God 
alone  that  existence  necessarily  and  eternally  pertains? 
But  although  the  right  conception  of  this  truth  has  cost 
me  much  close  thinking,  nevertheless  now  I  feel  not  only 
as  assured  of  it  as  of  what  I  deem  most  certain,  but  I  find 
further  that  the  certitude  of  all  other  truths  is  so  absol- 
utely dependent  on  this  one,  that  without  the  knowledge 
of  God  it  would  be  impossible  ever  to  know  anything.  .  .  . 
For,  if  I  do  not  first  know  that  there  is  a  God,  I  may  have 
been  so  constituted  as  to  be  deceived  by  my  faculties,  and 
this  even  in  matters  which  I  apprehend  with  the  greatest 
seeming  evidence  and  certitude ;  especially  when  I  recol- 
lect that  I  have  frequently  judged  things  to  be  true 
which  other  reasons  afterwards  constrained  me  to  regard 
as  wholly  false.  ...  I  now  clearly  see  that  the  certitude 
and  truth  of  all  science  depends  on  knowledge  of  God  and 
on  that  alone ;  so  that  before  I  knew  God  I  could  have  no 


FINAL    SCEPTICISM.  HI 

proper  knowledge  of  anything.  But  now  that  I  know 
God,  I  have  the  means  of  acquiring  knowledge  of  in- 
numerable other  matters,  as  well  relative  to  God  as  to 
corporeal  nature."  Next  take  Locke :  "We  cannot  be  in 
want  of  a  clear  proof  of  God  as  long  as  we  carry  ourselves 
about  us.  ...  It  is  plain  to  me  we  have  a  more  certain 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  a  God  than  of  anything  our 
senses  have  not  immediately  discovered  to  us.  Nay,  I 
presume  I  may  say  that  we  more  certainly  know  there  is 
a  God  than  that  there  is  anything  else  without  us.  But 
though  this  be  the  most  obvious  truth  that  reason  dis- 
covers, and  though  its  evidence  be  (if  I  mistake  not)  equal 
to  mathematical  certainty,  yet  it  requires  thought  and 
attention ;  or  else  we  shall  be  as  uncertain  and  ignorant 
of  this  as  of  other  propositions  which  are  in  themselves 
capable  of  clear  demonstration."  So  far  Bacon,  Descartes,  , 
and  Locke,  three  early  leaders  of  modern  thought.  How 
comes  it  that  what  they,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
regarded  as  self-evident,  or  as  mathematically  certain, 
should  in  the  nineteenth  century  be  judged  by  speculat- 
ing physicists  to  be  wholly  and  for  ever  incognisable  ? 

The  history  of  European  thought  in  the  interval  goes  Agnosti- 
far  to   explain  the  revolution   through   which  what  was  c'j^s°ldly 
accepted    as    the   supreme   certainty  by  the   intellectual  descent 
leaders  of  the  seventeenth   century  has   become  the  su-  ^Kan^ 
preme  uncertainty  of  physical  theorists  who  aspire  to  lead  'as  well  as' 
human  thought  in  the  nineteenth.     Huxley  argues  that  Hume- 
with   "  Hume   and   Kant,"   the   great   authorities  of   the 
eighteenth  century,  presenting  themselves  as  advocates  of 
the  insolubility  of  the  final  problem  of  the  universe,  it 
cannot  be  "  presumptuous "   in   us   to  hold   fast  by   this 
opinion.      He  thinks  "  agnosticism  "  is  only  a  new  name 
for  the  philosophy  of  Hume   and  Kant;   and  that  their 
philosophy  has  determined  the  limits  within  which  our 
knowledge  of  the  universe  must  be  confined.     Their  mes- 
sage he  reports  to  be — that  men  can  know  reality  only  so 
far  as  they   have  actual  experience :  without  experience 
knowledge  is  only  empty  abstraction.     Except  so  far  as 
our  three  primary  data  —  outward  things,  the  ego,  and 
God— are  explained  in  experience,  no  positive  assertions 


112  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

regarding  any  of  them  can  be  made :  our  assertions  must 

be  all  negative. 
The  Kan-         Kant  is   associated  with  Hume  by  Huxley  as  one  of 
tianPhiio-   two  original  leaders  of  agnosticism.     This  is  on  account 

sophy  as  a       e  T_        y      .  „  .?  . 

whole  not  or  Kant  s  theory  or  causality,  and  his  application  of  it  to 
agnostic,  old-fashioned  natural  theology.  But  Kant's  negation  of 
theological  knowledge,  as  what  transcends  understanding, 
does  not  necessarily  mean  practical  negation  of  the  moral 
and  religious  conception  of  the  universe.  This  would 
imply  that  his  total  thought  was  not  consistent  with 
itself — that  his  second  Critique  was  a  vain  attempt  to 
restore  what  he  had  destroyed  in  his  first.  But  the 
arguments  in  the  first  Critique  against  a  theological 
solution  of  existence  through  purely  rational  construc- 
tion of  our  sensuous  experience,  neither  demonstrate 
nor  disprove  God  ;  they  do  not  foreclose  the  practical 
argument  from  man's  moral  experience  in  the  second 
Critique,  which  contains  the  complementary  issue  of 
Kantian  criticism.  Hume,  not  Kant,  is  the  prime  leader 
of  modern  agnosticism.  It  is  thus  formulated  by  Hume : 
— "  When  you  go  one  step  beyond  the  mundane  system, 
you  only  excite  an  inquisitive  humour,  which  it  is  im- 
possible ever  to  satisfy."  But  Hume  sees  that  this  agnos- 
ticism, when  fully  thought  out,  involves  total  nescience, 
not  merely  theological  ignorance. 

The  Pyr-  In  truth  the  negative  revolution  which  was  proposed  by 

rhonism  of  Hume,  in  his  juvenile  '  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,'  is  more 

xi  11  111  6  IS 

scientific  bold  and  thorough  than  the  scientific  agnosticism  of  Hux- 
agnosti-  iey?  which  claims  him  as  its  parent :  it  involves  the  com- 
thon'ght  }  plete  dissolution  of  common  knowledge  and  science,  not 
out-  of  theology  alone.     It  issues  in   the  Pyrrhonism  which 

leaves  men  impotent,  motionless,  speechless ;  or  if  ex- 
pressed in  speech,  it  must  be  speech  in  the  form  of  a 
question,  never  in  the  form  of  a  proposition,  either 
affirmative  or  negative,  on  any  matter  whatever.  The 
"  Que  sais-je  ? "  with  the  even  balance  as  its  symbol, 
which  Montaigne  adopted  to  express  the  hopeless  uni- 
versality of  human  doubt  or  ignorance,  represents  all  that 
Hume  found  in  sensuous   experience,   when  emptied  of 


FINAL    SCEPTICISM.  113 

its  rational  implicates.  The  only  philosophically  possible 
sort  of  intellectual  life  for  man,  according  to  Hume,  would 
be  a  life  of  question -putting  —  with  no  answers  about 
anything.  Experience  consists — if  it  can  be  spoken  of  as 
"consistence" — not  of  what  is  substantial,  but  of  isolated 
appearances.  We  have  no  experience  of  a  persistent, 
dependent  material  world  ;  we  have  no  experience  of  inde- 
pendent personality ;  we  have  no  experience  of  the  Uni- 
versal Power  at  the  heart  of  the  whole.  All  at  the  most 
is  a  succession  of  empty  shows,  too  insignificant  to  be 
worth  righting  about,  so  that  martyrs  of  all  sorts  are 
madmen.  The  essence  of  wisdom,  as  also  with  Montaigne, 
is  to  oscillate,  to  doubt,  to  inquire,  to  feel  sure  of  nothing, 
to  make  one's  self  responsible  for  nothing.  If  sensation 
is  for  us  the  measure  of  the  universe,  what  is  called  ex- 
perience can  be  only  the  sensation  of  the  moment.  What 
is  not  actually  felt  cannot  be  a  part  of  experience.  And 
this  rope  of  sand,  without  links  of  reason,  is  worthless, 
whenever  any  assertions  are  made  regarding  the  past, 
the  distant,  or  the  future,  equally  as  when  assertions  are 
made  about  Gocl.  If  belief  must  be  confined  within  the 
transitory  actual  feeling  of  the  moment ;  if  momentary 
feeling,  under  this  stringent  limitation,  cannot  be  inter- 
preted as  the  sign  of  aught  beyond  itself,  the  only  pos- 
sible expression  of  intelligence  must  be  transitory  inter- 
rogation. All  assertion  about  what  is  outside  present 
feeling  must  be  unproved  assertion.  Intellect  can  at 
the  most  only  have  strength  enough  to  extinguish  itself. 

But  Hume  seems  occasionally  to  approach  the  spiritual  Humehim- 
counteractive  to  this  intellectual  suicide.    An  intense  view  ^^2^. 
of  the  hollowness  of  the  knowledge  that  is  measured  by  mon  sense, 
the  isolated  impression  of  the  moment,  at  first  disposed  wlgftsar"  . 
him  "  to  reject  all  belief  and  reasoning,"  so  that  he  "  could  ticism. 
look  upon  no  opinion  as   more  probable  or  likely  than 
another."      "  Where    am    I,    or   what   am    I  ? "    he   asks. 
"From    what  cause   do    I   derive    my   existence,  and   to 
what  condition  shall   I  return  ?     Whose  favour  shall    I 
court,    and    whose   anger   must    I   dread  ?     What  beings 
surround  me  ?    and  on  whom   have  I   any   influence,  or 
who  has  any  influence  on  me  ?     I  am   confounded  with 

H 


114 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


In  all  in- 
ferences 
about  the 
absent 
from  the 
present, a 
step  must 
be  taken 
which  is 
not  a  logi- 
cal con- 
sequence. 


all  these  questions,  and  begin  to  fancy  myself  in  ^  the 
most  deplorable  condition  imaginable,  utterly  deprived 
of  the  use  of  every  member  and  faculty."  But  if  "ex- 
perience "  in  its  narrowest  meaning,  when  made  the  sole 
criterion  of  reality,  brought  him  to  this  pass,  "  experience  " 
in  a  wider  meaning,  including  felt  moral  implicates  of 
experience,  carried  him,  he  confesses,  out  of  his  "phil- 
osophical melancholy  and  delirium."  It  is  indeed  im- 
possible for  a  human  being  to  subside  practically  into 
Pyrrhonism,  or  inability  to  assert  anything  about  any- 
thing. There  is  the  "  secret  force "  in  human  nature  of 
which  Pascal  speaks,  which  sustains  the  weakness  of 
finite  experience  and  understanding.  The  sceptic  who 
declines  to  interpret  any  phenomenon,  or  to  make  any 
exertion,  because  he  is  not  omniscient,  must  cease  to 
live.  Total  scepticism,  as  has  been  said,  can  never  be 
more  than  an  intellectual  amusement:  its  only  serious 
effect  consists  in  exercising  acuteness,  and  in  humbling 
dogmatism:  no  human  mind  can  rest  in  it:  by  virtually 
making  all  the  foundations  of  reasoning  and  conduct 
equally  insecure,  it  leaves  all  opinions  in  the  same  degree 
of  certainty  or  probability,  relatively  to  each  other,  in 
which  they  were  before.  Hume  himself  occasionally 
saw,  in  the  venture  of  moral  faith,  the  sort  of  extrica- 
tion from  universal  doubt  that  is  available  for  a  finite 
intelligence. 

It  is  instructive  to  trace  the  steps  which  Hume  followed 
in  his  proposed  "  solution  of  sceptical  doubts."  It  reminds 
one  of  Pascal.  Those  who  pretend  to  doubt  everything  are 
confounded  by  natural  faith :  dogmatists  who  claim  in- 
fallibility are  confounded  by  sceptical  criticism.  The 
finite  understanding  of  man,  incapable  of  comprehending 
the  infinity  of  existence,  Hume  finds  nevertheless  "  carried 
by  custom  "  to  believe  in  objects  and  events  that  "  lie  be- 
yond the  present  testimony  of  our  senses  and  the  records 
of  our  memory."  In  all  human  reasonings  from  experi- 
ence, he  sees  that  a  step  is  taken  in  faith,  unsupported  by 
any  argument  of  the  understanding;  yet  sanctioned  by 
reason  as  a  step  that  is  reasonable.  Although  not  deter- 
mined by  argument  to  take  the  step,  one  is  induced  by 


FINAL    SCEPTICISM.  115 

"another  principle  of  equal  weight  and  authority."  All 
"  inferences  from  experience  "  are  found  to  be  examples  of 
trust  in  the  constancy  of  uniformities  that  are  customary. 
On  this  unproved  trust  or  faith,  he  accordingly  recon- 
stitutes the  experience  which  his  sceptical  criticisms  had 
discredited.  We  are  somehow  obliged,  he  seems  to 
say,  to  put  moral  trust  in  the  universe,  when  it  ad- 
dresses us  in  well-tried  uniformities,  confident  that  intel- 
ligence will  not  be  put  to  confusion  by  the  issue.  Now 
faith  in  the  laws  of  nature  is  unconscious  faith  in  God 
omnipresent  in  nature.  It  is  in  this  moral  reliance  on  the 
surroundings  amidst  which  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being  that  men  are  able  to  transcend  their  momentary  per- 
ceptions, and  to  bring  into  a  large  or  scientific  experience 
what  is  not  actually  present  to  their  senses.  All  expectation 
is  rooted  in  faith :  we  cannot  demonstrate  its  presupposi- 
tion. ^  Without  faith-venture  we  could  not  live ;  and  in 
the  circumstances  of  man,  this  faith  is  reasonable,  unless 
its  absurdity  can  be  demonstrated.  It  is  "an  operation 
of  the  soul"  which  responds  to  the  fact  of  order  in 
nature.  It  is  as  unavoidable  as  it  is  to  feel  the  passion  of 
love  when  we  receive  benefits,  or  hatred  when  we  meet 
with  injuries.  In  all  these  operations  alike,  Hume  sees 
what  he  calls  "  a  species  of  natural  instinct,"  which  human 
reasoning  is  unable  either  to  produce  or  to  destroy. 

Hume    even    suggests   a   superior    faith    under   which  Aiiscien- 
faith  in  natural  law  arises  in  the  minds  of  men.     This  tific  iufer- 
faith  he  describes  as  a  feeling  of  trust  in  nature,  which  matter  of* 
can   be   understood    only  by  our   being  conscious   of  it  factare 
"Were  we  to  attempt  a  definition  of  this  belief  or  faith,  eipSLioL 
we  should  perhaps  find  it  an  impossible  task;  in  the  same  of  faith  in 
manner  as  if  we  should  endeavour  to  define  the  feeling  of  worthless 
cold,  or  the  passion  of  anger,  to  a  creature  who  never  had  of  the 
any  experience  of  these  sentiments.     Every  man  is  every  ^7" 
moment  conscious  of  the  sentiment  represented  by  it.     It 
is  that  act  of  the  mind  which  renders  realities,  or  what  is 
taken  for  reality,  more  present  to  us  than  fictions  ;  causes 
them  to  weigh  more  in  the  thought,  and  gives  them   a 
superior  influence  on  the  passions'and  imagination.     Be- 
lief consists  not  in  the  peculiar  nature  or  order  of  ideas, 


ersal 
er. 


116 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


but  in  the  manner  of  their  conception,  and  in  their 
peculiar  feeling  to  the  mind.  It  is  impossible  perfectly 
to  explain  this  feeling.  We  can  go  no  further  than 
assert  that  belief  in  reality  is  something  so  felt  by 
the  mind  as  to  distinguish  ideas  of  the  judgment  from 
mere  fictions  of  the  imagination.  It  gives  them  weight 
and  influence ;  enforces  them  in  the  mind,  and  renders 
them  the  governing  principles  of  our  actions."  So  it  is 
that  faith  in  the  divine  trustworthiness  of  the  universe 
is  an  implicate  of  the  assurance  that  real  events  out- 
side our  fancies  follow  one  another  in  steady  order. 
The  past  prevalence  of  natural  order  awakens  faith  in 
the  continuance  of  natural  order — that  is  to  say,  in  the 
reasonableness  or  interpretability  of  nature.  But  what- 
ever the  occasion  of  the  rise  of  this  faith  may  be,  the 
matter  of  chief  concern  is, — that  the  faith  does  natur- 
ally arise,  and  that  the  expectation  which  it  involves 
finds  a  response  in  what  happens  in  nature.  The  uni- 
verse is  (so  far)  comprehended,  when  it  is  found  in  fact 
to  correspond  to  the  previsive  judgments  of  man:  man 
and  his  universe  exist  in  an  established  intelligible  har- 
mony. Is  not  this  interpretability  of  nature  another 
expression  for  its  innate  divinity— its  final  supernatural- 
ness  ?  It  is  the  initial  venture  of  dependence  on  the 
Universal  Power,  herein  no  longer  unknown,  but  so  far 
and  thus  revealed,  in  a  real  revelation  of  what  in  its 
divine  infinity  passes  knowledge.  One  can  almost  read 
this  within  the  lines  even  in  Hume. 

In  the  "correspondence"  that  appears  between  this 
inevitable  faith  or  trust  in  natural  order  and  the  issues  of 
that  order,  Hume  sees  "  a  kind  of  pre-established  har- 
mony." It  is  a  "  harmony  between  nature  and  our  ideas : 
though  the  powers  and  forces  by  which  the  universe 
is  governed  be  otherwise  wholly  unknown  to  us,  yet  so 
so  that'ali  far  our  thoughts  and  conceptions  may  proceed  in  the  same 
scientific  train  with  nature.  Custom  is  the  law  under  which  this 
fm0p°iication  correspondence  has  been  effected.  Had  not  the  presence 
theistic  0f  an  object  excited  in  us  the  idea  of  the  objects  com- 
faith"  inonly  conjoined  with  it  in  nature,  all  human  knowledge 

must  have  been  limited   to   the   narrow  sphere   of   our 


They  pre- 
suppose a 
harmony 
between 
onr 

thoughts 
and  the 
course  of 
nature  ; 


FINAL   SCEPTICISM.  117 

memory ;  and  we  should  never  have  been  able  to  adjust 
means  to  ends,  or  employ  our  natural  powers,  either  to 
the  producing  of  good  or  avoiding  of  evil."  That  a 
universal  purpose,  as  well  as  a  universal  order,  is  tacitly 
acknowledged  in  our  natural  trust,  Hume  accordingly 
suggests.  "  Those  who  delight  in  the  discovery  and 
contemplation  of  final  causes  have  ample  subject  to  em- 
ploy their  wonder  and  admiration,"  in  contemplating 
the  harmony  between  our  scientific  expectations  and 
the  course  of  things.  For  the  "wisdom  of  nature"  has 
implanted  in  us  an  instinctive  faith,  "  which  carries  for- 
ward our  thought  in  a  correspondent  course  to  that  which 
she  has  established  among  external  objects." 

The  three  primary  data  are  virtually  implied — each  in  David 
a  thin  attenuated  form— in  these  notable  words  of  Hume.  HeXiT 
"  Self "  and  "  outward  things  "  are  distinguished,  yet  in  Spencer. 
established  harmony  with  each  other;  and  withal  order 
and  purpose,  embodied  in  the  whole,  but  with  ignorance 
otherwise  of  the  Power  to  which  the  order  and  purpose 
are  due.  The  Universal  Power  is  credited  with  "  wisdom," 
because  wisdom  is  manifested  in  the  existence  of  the 
harmony;  yet,  as  with  Herbert  Spencer,  "the  Power 
which  the  universe  manifests  to  us  is  utterly  inscrutable." 
But  one  may  ask,  How  and  why  "  utterly  "  inscrutable, 
when  "  wisdom "  is  latent  in  its  manifestations  ?  Its 
manifestations  must  not  be  spoken  of  as  if  they  con- 
cealed the  Power,  when  they  are  in  fact  its  revelation 
and  embodiment.  Is  not  the  opposite  assumption  the 
issue  of  a  narrow  conception  of  the  homo  mensura  prin- 
ciple ?  The  revolution  in  the  method  of  finally  interpreting 
existence  for  which  Hume  claims  credit  is  substitution  of 
a  concrete  homo  mensura  for  the  abstract  Divina  Mensura 
principle  of  Spinoza.  But  by  Hume  only  a  sensuous 
homo  is  taken  into  the  account,  with  the  result,  as  Carlyle 
severely  puts  it,  that  to  him  life  and  the  universe  "  was 
little  more  than  a  foolish  Bartholomew  Fair  show-booth, 
with  the  foolish  crowding  and  elbowings  of  which  it  was 
not  worth  while  to  quarrel,  the  whole  would  break  up 
and  be  at  liberty  so  soon." 

In  David  Hume,  the  gentle  benevolence  which  charmed 


11 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Hume's 
reason  for 
regarding 
religious 
emotion  as 
irrational. 


Hume's 
difficulty 
about 
theism. 


his  friends,  and  which  Henry  Mackenzie  has  pathetically 
illustrated  in  the  story  of  '  La  Eoche,'  was  united  to  a 
temperament  to  which  religious  emotion  was  by  his  own 
account  foreign.  Warm  in  friendship,  he  was  indifferent 
in  religion,  with  an  inveterate  dislike  to  every  sort 
of  enthusiasm,  founded  on  the  narrow  rationalism  of  a 
philosophy  measured  by  sense.  We  see  this  in  his  ob- 
jections to  adoration  and  prayer,  and  to  "  everything  we 
commonly  call  religion — except  the  practice  of  morality, 
and  the  assent  of  the  understanding  to  the  proposition 
that  God  exists.  It  must  be  acknowledged,"  he  adds, 
"  that  nature  has  given  us  a  strong  passion  of  admiration 
for  whatever  is  excellent,  and  that  the  Deity  possesses 
these  attributes  in  the  highest  perfection ;  and  yet  I 
assert  that  God  is  not  the  natural  object  of  any  passion 
or  affection.  He  is  no  object  either  of  the  senses  or 
imagination,  and  very  little  of  the  understanding ;  with- 
out which  it  is  impossible  to  excite  any  affection.  And, 
indeed,  I  am  afraid  that  all  enthusiasts  mightily  deceive 
themselves.  Hope  and  fear  perhaps  agitate  their  breasts 
when  they  think  of  the  Deity ;  or  they  degrade  him  into 
a  resemblance  with  themselves,  and  by  that  means  render 
him  more  comprehensible.  Such  an  affection  cannot  be 
required  of  any  man  as  his  duty.  Neither  the  turbulent 
passions  nor  the  calm  affections  can  operate  without  the 
assistance  of  the  senses  and  imagination;  or  at  least  a 
more  complete  knowledge  of  the  object  than  we  have  of 
the  Deity.  In  most  men  this  is  the  case ;  and  a  natural 
infirmity  can  never  be  a  crime." 

This  recognition  of  "  natural  infirmity  "  as  non-moral  is 
a  sort  of  tacit  acknowledgment  that  the  ground  of  moral 
responsibility  lies  in  supernatural  freedom.  But  apart 
from  this,  of  which  more  afterwards,  this  argument  for 
the  impossibility  of  religious  emotion  "  in  most  men "  is 
interesting,  when  taken  in  connection  with  the  sympathy 
which  Hume  avows  for  the  position  of  Cleanthes,  one  of 
the  three  interlocutors  in  the  'Dialogues  on  Natural 
Eeligion.'  It  is  Cleanthes  who  takes  the  part  of  reason- 
ing himself  into  belief  in  an  omnipotent  and  all-wise  God, 
as  the  supreme  principle  in  existence,  by  an  induction 


FINAL   SCEPTICISM.  119 

from  human  experience  of  order  and  mechanism  in  the 
world.      To   Cleanthes,   "  the    most   agreeable    reflection 
which  it  is  possible  for  human  imagination  to  suggest  is 
that  of   genuine   theism;    which   represents   men   as   the 
workmanship  of  a  Being  perfectly  good,  wise,  and  power- 
ful, who,  having  implanted  in  us  immeasurable  desires  of 
good,  will  prolong  our  existence  to  all  eternity  in  order  to 
satisfy  these  desires."     Hume  elsewhere  expresses  sym- 
pathy with  this  conclusion,  combined  with  some  hesita- 
tion to  receive  it  as  truth,  on  account  of  the  absence  of 
adequate  verification.     "  I  could  wish,"  he  remarks  in  one 
of  his  letters, — "  I  could  wish  that  Cleanthes's  argument 
could  be  so  analysed  as  to  be  rendered  quite  formal  and 
regular.     The  propensity  of  the  mind  towards  it — unless 
that  propensity  were   as   strong  and  universal   as  that  to 
believe  in  our  senses — will  still,  I  am  afraid,  be  esteemed  as 
suspicious  foundation.     Tis  here  I  wish  for  your  assist- 
ance:   we  must  endeavour  to  prove  that  this  propensity 
is   somewhat  different   from   our  inclination   to   find   our 
own  figures  in  the   clouds,   our   faces  in  the   moon,  our 
passions  and  sentiments  even  in  inanimate  matter.     For 
these   last   may    and   ought   to    be    controlled,   and   can 
never  be  legitimate  ground  of  assent,  or  foundations  of 
reasoning." 

The  legitimacy  of  an  extension  of  "  experience  "  which  The  limit 
recognises  in  it  the  moral  and  religious  presuppositions  by  ^pSce, 
which    it    is    constituted,  is  involved   in   the   issue   with  according  ' 
modern  agnosticism,  and  it  is  interesting  to  find  this  face  to  Hume- 
to  face  with  Hume.     It  is  difficult  to  determine  what  his 
final  opinion  was,  if  indeed  he  had  a  settled  opinion,  or 
how  far  below  the  thin  surface  of  sense  he  meant  to  go. 
That  Intelligence  is   supreme   in   the  universe,  however 
little  this  Intelligence  can  be  an  object  of  human  senti- 
ment, was  sometimes  strongly  maintained  by  him.     "  The 
whole  frame  of  nature,"  he  asserts  in  his  'Natural  His- 
tory of  Eeligion,'  "bespeaks  an  intelligent  Author;  and 
no  rational  inquirer  can,  after  serious  reflection,  suspend 
his   belief   for   a   moment   with    regard    to   the   primary 
principles    of   genuine    theism."      Perhaps   the  key  may 
be    found   in    a   remark    he    made    to   his    friend   Boyle, 


120  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

who  told  him  it  was  reported  that  he  had  "  thrown  off 
the   principles   of  religion."     To   which   the  good  David 
replied :  "  Though  I  throw  out  my  speculations  to  enter- 
tain the  learned  and  metaphysical  world,  yet   I   do  not 
think  so   differently  from  the  rest  of   the  world  as  you 
imagine."      But  this  about  Hume  personally  is  by  the 
way.     I  return  to  agnosticism, 
is  the  re-         The  scientific  agnostic  is  ready  to  take  the  inductive 
ligious         u  ieap  in  tne  daj.]^"  with  faith  in  a  natural  order  assumed 
the6 dark"    to  be   present   in   his    sense    surroundings:    the   leap   is 
less  ration-  essentially  an  act  of  faith,  not  the  conclusion  of  a  logical 
" leapin ie  reasoning   emptied   of   all   trust   and   sense    of    mystery, 
the  dark"    7g  ne  not  in  like  manner  required,  under  pressure  of  a 
biteken^in  spiritual  faith,  involved  in  ideal  man,  but  which  remains 
physical      dormant  in  many,  to  accept  as  reasonable  that  deeper  in- 
solence?     terpretation  of  the  universe  which  sees  in  it  the  hyper- 
physical  manifestation  of  moral  purpose?     That  to  do  so 
is  fallacious,  "  because  it  substitutes  faith  for  reasoning," 
cannot  per  se  be  pleaded  in  arrest  of  this  further  leap  in 
imperfect  divine  light.     For  every  step  in  the  physical 
interpretation  of  the  world  equally  involves  the  substitu- 
tion of  indemonstrable  trust  for  complete  insight.    Boasted 
inductive  verification  in  natural  science  is  finally  an  act  of 
faith,  not  of  reasoning :  we  cannot  demonstrate  that  what 
has  happened  a  million  times  must  happen  again,  even 
under  what   may   seem   to    us   similar   conditions.      The 
incoherent  agnosticism   that  retains    physical   science  is 
not  really  a  protest  against  faith ;  it  is  only  an  arrest  of 
faith  at  the  point  at  which  faith  advances  from  a  narrower 
to  a  larger  interpretation  of  life  and  the  universe.     Is  the 
arrest  of  faith  at  this  point  justified  by  reason  ?     I  must 
try  to  answer  this  question   in   what  follows,  in   which 
the  religious  conception  of  the  universe,  gradually  devel- 
oped in  Theistic  Faith,  is  offered,  instead  of  either  Monist 
speculation  or  Agnostic  despair,  as  the  final  philosophy 
for  man. 


SECOND     PART 


FINAL  REASON  IN  THEISTIC  FAITH 


LECTUEE    I. 

GOD   LATENT   IN   NATURE. 

We  have  found  David  Hume  emerging  out  of  universal  David 
doubt,  not  by  reasoning,  but  through  what  implies  faith  j.J^1  ?* 
in  final  harmony  between  human  nature  and  the  succes-  established 
sion  of  events  in  external  nature.     Without  faith  in  this,  harmony 
human  beings  could  not  adjust  means  to  ends,  or  use  their  external 
natural  powers  in  procuring  any  good  or  avoiding  any  jaature  and 
evil.     This  harmony,  even  Hume  seems  to  say,  wears  the  nature, 
aspect  of  what,  according  to  analogies,  we  should  call  a 
wise  arrangement.      The  course  of  nature,  or  the  tem- 
poral succession,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  find  ourselves, 
and  in  which  we  take  our  respective  parts,  looks,  so  far, 
like  constant  adaptation  to  man. 

May    we    refer   this    harmonious    correlation    between  How  to 
the  material  world  and  the  mind  of  man  to  persisting  j^1^. 
purpose  in  the  Universal  Power  ?     And   if  so,  must  we  mony. 
also  suppose  that  the  natural  evolution,  with  its  provi- 
dential order,  had  an  absolute  beginning  in  time  ?     Have 
we  evidence  that  there  ever  was  a  period  in  which  there 
was  no  cosmos — no  moral  agents — no  procedure  of  natural 
evolution,  including  cycles  of  integration  and  dissolution  ? 
Must  we  believe  that  when  there  was  no  cosmos,  the 
Providential  Power  existed,  unrevealed  in  any  form  of 
natural   manifestation ;    and   that   at    a    particular   date 
orderly  nature  was  ushered  into  existence  by  a  sudden 
creative  act  ?     And  if  there  has   ever  been  a  time   in 
which  there  was  neither  cosmical  construction  nor  cos- 
mical  dissolution  going  on  as  now,  did  there  then  exist 


124  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

the  stuff  or  material  out  of  which  the  ordering  and  design- 
ing Power  afterwards  fashioned  the  cosmos,  and  set  its 
evolutions  agoing — matter  charged  with  "  powers  "  which 
enable  the  sequences  and  their  cycles  and  crises  to  persist, 
per  se,  without  "interference"?  Or  was  the  cosmos, 
within  which  men  have  their  experience,  originated  with- 
out pre-existing  material  in  primordial  chaos,  coming,  ac- 
cording to  the  theological  formula,  "  out  of  nothing,"  not 
out  of  chaotic  material.  Yet  again,  is  there  a  more  reason- 
able supposition  than  either  of  these  two,  namely,  that 
cosmical  construction  and  disintegration  has  been  going  on 
always— that  it  is  an  unbeginning  succession,  and  may  be 
expected  to  be  endless  ?  May  not  the  Universe  in  which 
I  now  find  myself,  in  the  deepest  interpretation  which  I 
can  put  upon  my  experience,  be  just  this  unbeginning 
and  unending  succession  of  orderly,  and  therefore  inter- 
pretable,  changes,  amidst  which  I  am  living  and  moving 
and  having  my  being?  May  not  this  eternal  evolution 
be  the  fact  ? 
One  faith  Questions  of  this  sort,  charged  with  infinity,  the  agnostic 
is  accepted,  naturalist  puts  aside  as  unanswerable  and  unpractical. 
otbe?faith  He  does  so  on  the  ground  that  answers  to  them  must  be 
is  rejected,  answers  that  come  from  a  faith  which  must  be  irrational, 
Settific  because  it  does  not  admit  of  being  verified  by  visible 
agnostic,  facts ;  whereas,  on  the  contrary,  answers  to  questions 
about  the  visible  causes  of  events  within  the  natural  evolu- 
tion are  accepted  in  a  faith  that  is  enlightened  and  made 
precise  by  this  sort  of  verification.  But  if  undemonstrable 
faith  in  natural  order  is  nevertheless  reasonable,  why 
must  teleological  interpretation  of  nature  be  rejected, 
on  the  ground  that  its  only  support  is  undemonstrable 
faith  ?  The  scientific  trust  in  cosmical  order,  on  which 
all  inductive  verification  depends,  cannot  itself  be  proved 
by  experience,  because  no  scientific  interpretation  of  ex- 
perience is  possible  unless  this  faith  is  presupposed  with- 
out proof.  Religious  trust  in  providential  activity  for 
ever  at  work  throughout  the  evolving  universe,  as 
well  as  in  the  small  portion  of  it  which  forms  human 
experience,  seems  to  stand,  so  far,  on  the  same  footing. 
If  it  is  reasonable  to  assume  constant  natural  order  as 


GOD  LATENT  IN  NATURE.  125 

the  constructive  principle  in  the  interpretation  of  sen- 
suous experience,  why  is  it  unreasonable  to  assume  that 
physical  causation  is  also  divine  providential  agency, 
if  the  facts  consist  with  the  deeper  assumption  ?  Order 
means  reason,  and  reason  means  for  man  conscious  reason 
and  intending  will.  The  circumstance  that  we  bring  the 
idea  of  adaptation  to  facts,  to  enable  us  to  interpret 
them,  instead  of  receiving  it  as  a  logical  conclusion,  seems 
to  be  no  more  a  reason  for  arresting  fully  religious  faith 
in  God  than  for  arresting  faith  in  God  as  omnipresent 
physical  order, 

Further.     The  assumption  that  I  am  living  in  a  cosmos,  Isthereany 
and  in  a  cosmos  charged  with  providential  purpose,  does  g^smos 
not  settle  the  historical  question  of  the  origin  and  outcome  of  things 
of  the  succession  of  things  and  persons  in  course  of  natural  j^^yer 
evolution.     I  do  not  find  that  the  presence  of  order  and  had  a  be- 
design  within  the   cosmos  means  that  the  cosmos  must  gmmr»g? 
have  had  a  beginning.     That  the   universe   should  exist 
without  either  a  beginning  or  an  end  of  its  orderly  meta- 
morphoses, does  not  seem  less  consistent  with  the  ideas  of 
theism  and  providence,  than  the  hypothesis  of  its  sudden 
creation  in  time — whatever  that  may  mean.     Those  who 
assert  that   it  had  a  beginning,  and  will  have  an   end, 
must  prove,   and   not  assert.      They  are  bound   to  pro- 
duce evidence  of  what,  if  true,  would  be  a  historical  fact. 
Now,  historical  proof  that   cosmical   order  and  purpose 
were  long  ago  manifested  for  the  first  time  is  not  only 
difficult  to  find,  but  seems  to  involve  a  contradiction. 

What  is  the  evidence  that  the  natural  universe  had  An  imbe- 
a  beginning  ?     How  does  it  appear  that  the  providential  ^XmLd- 


uv<  cosmos 


succession   of   physical   sequences,   with  their   periodical 
cycles  of  construction  and  disintegration,  originated,  at  a  ™***l°T 
particular  date,  in  a  Mind  that  had  no   beginning,  but  morally 
that  existed  before  this  date  without  making  any  cosmical  ^yiden" 
manifestation  of  itself?      What  proof  is  there  that  the 
universe  made   a   first   appearance   as   a   sudden   super- 
natural effect,  and  that  it  may  not  be  the  unbeginning 
and  endless  issue  of  constant  divine  agency  ?     May  not 
the  unbeginning  past  have  been  the  scene  of  an  endless 


126  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

series  of  ordered  evolutions  and  dissolutions — successive 
cycles  or  economies — in  which  the  existing  material  has 
been  undergoing  periodic  natural  revolutions;  and  that 
human  beings  are  living,  here  and  now,  in  one  of  these 
cycles,  which  had  its  natural  beginning  in  a  remote  past, 
and  is  destined  naturally  to  pass  into  another  economy 
in  a  remote  future  ?  May  not  this  eternal  natural  suc- 
cession be  essentially  divine,  and  be  conceived  of  as 
the  unbeginning  and  unending  revelation  of  constant  in- 
tending Will  ?  Is  not  this  a  more  reasonable  hypothesis 
than  that  of  sudden  creation,  which  seems  to  mean  that 
the  universe,  or  the  natural  course  of  evolution,  was  once 
non-existent,  and  entered  into  existence  as  the  effect  of 
the  Will  of  a  God  existing  antecedently  in  unbeginning 
solitude  ?  Moreover,  if  the  universe  must  be  refunded, 
at  a  particular  period,  into  the  Universal  Power,  does  not 
this  logic  demand  an  antecedent  cause  of  the  solitary 
Mind,  thus  inferred  only  under  the  ordinary  postulate  of 
natural  causation  ? 
A  question  A  question  like  this  was  raised,  as  we  saw,  by  Hume. 
David  Human  persons,  so  far  as  natural  science  and  history 
Hume.  inform  us,  made  their  appearance  in  the  universe  at  a 
comparatively  late  date, — in  rude  forms  of  human  life  on 
this  planet.  This,  we  are  told,  was  preceded  by  ages  of 
sentient  organisms,  and  before  that  there  was  only  in- 
sentient matter.  It  is  therefore  with  a  material  world 
only  that  we  have  to  do,  in  the  earlier  stages — if  we 
confine  our  regard  to  the  cosmical  economy  of  which 
man  has  authentic  records,  either  documentary  or  in 
the  form  of  geological  and  astronomical  phenomena. 
Hume  suggests  that,  for  aught  we  can  know  a  priori, 
matter  may  originally  contain  within  itself  the  spring 
of  order,  as  probably  as  mind  does ;  and  that  there  is 
no  more  difficulty  in  conceiving  that  the  several  elements 
or  molecules  of  matter  may  in  this  way  assume  the  most 
exquisite  construction,  than  to  conceive  that  ideas  in  a 
supposed  Eternal  Mind  have  fallen  into  the  arrange- 
ment which  forms  the  succession  of  ideas  that  constitute 
the  mind  of  God.  If  the  material  world  was  really  caused 
by  a  pre-existing  mental  world,  or  Eternal  Mind,  this 


GOD  LATENT  IN  NATURE.  127 

mental  world  must  in  its  turn  rise  out  of  a  still  preceding 
cause  ;  and  so  on  regressively  without  end.  It  were  better, 
therefore,  the  sceptic  suggests,  never  to  look  beyond  the 
perceived  material  world,  and  to  suppose  only  its  natural 
succession  of  unbeginning  and  unending  changes.  By 
supposing  Matter  to  contain  the  principle  of  order  within 
itself,  we  really  assert  it  to  be  God ;  and  the  sooner 
we  arrive  at  that  Divine  Being  so  much  the  better.  A 
mental  world,  or  universe  of  Mind,  requires  a  preceding 
cause  as  much  as  does  a  material  world,  or  universe  of 
visible  and  tangible  objects.  So  that,  if  merely  natural 
or  caused  causality  is  taken  as  the  only  real  causation  ; 
and  if  this  requires  us  to  presuppose  Mind  as  the  natural 
cause  of  the  material  world ;  the  same  principle  of  natural 
causality  seems  to  require  some  antecedent  to  account  for 
the  ideas  that  constitute  Mind. 

In  reply  it  has  been  suggested,  that  there  is  evidence  Alleged 
in  history  that  the  universe  was  created  "  out  of  nothing."  !!pr°°f" 
at  a  particular  time,  but  there  is  no  such  evidence  that  its  cosmos 
creating  Mind  had  also  a  beginning.     This  argument  is  h?d  i1  be" 
pressecl  by  Dr  Chalmers,  in  his  interesting  and  eloquent  §limmg- 
book  on  Natural  Theology.     "  The  precise  difference  be- 
tween  the  two,"  he   says,  "  is,  that   we  have  proof  of  a 
commencement  to  our  present  material  economy,  but  we 
have  no  proof  of  a  commencement  to  the  mental  economy 
— the  Divine  Mind — which  preceded  it.     There  is  room 
for  the  question,  How  came  the  material  system  of  things 
into   its   present   order  ?   because  we  have  reason   to  be- 
lieve that  it  has  not  subsisted  in  that  order  from  eternity. 
There  is  no  such  room  for  the  question,  Why  might  not 
the  material  have  fallen  into  its  present  order  of  itself, 
as  well  as  the  mental  order  which  is  conceived  to  have 
gone  before  it  in  the  form  of  a  Divine  Mind  ?     For  we 
have    no   reason    to    believe    that    this    mental    economy 
ever  was  otherwise  than  it  now  is.     The  latter  question 
presumes  that  the  mental  did  begin  to  enter  into  order 
of  itself,  or,  which  is   the  same  thing,  that   God   had  a 
commencement.     In  the  material  economy,  we  have  the 
vestiges  before  our  eyes  of  its  having   had   an  origin — 
or  in   other   words,   of  its   being  a  consequent;   and  we 


128  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

have  furthermore  the  experience  that  in  every  instance 
which   comes   under  full  observation  of  a  similar  conse- 
quent— that  is,  of  a  consequent  which  involves,  as  the 
mundane  order  of  things  does  so  amply,  the   adaptation 
of  parts  to  an  end — the  antecedent  was  a  purposing  mind, 
which   descried  the   end,  and  devised  the  means  for  its 
accomplishment.     We  might  not  have  been  called   upon 
to  make  even  a  single  ascent  in  the  path  of  causation,  had 
the  world  stood  forth  to  view  in  the  character  or  aspect 
of  immutability.     But,  instead  of  this,  both  history  and 
observation  of  nature  tell  of  a  definite  commencement  to 
the  present  order ;  and  we  therefore  just  follow  the  lights 
of  experience  when  we  move  upward  from  the  world  to 
an  intelligent  mind  that  ordained  it.     It  is  this  which 
carries  us  backward  from  the   world  to   God ;   and   the 
reason  why  we  do  not  continue  the  retrogression  beyond 
God  is — that  we  have  not  met  with  an  indication  that  He 
has  had  a  commencement.     In  the  one  case  there  is  a 
beginning  of  the  present  material  system  forced  upon  our 
convictions  by  evidence.     In  the  other  case,  the  case  of 
the  antecedent  Mind,  there  is  no  such  beginning  forced 
upon  our  convictions  by  experience.     We  have  therefore 
ample  reason  for  regarding  the  world  as  a  posterior  term, 
and  seeking  after  its  antecedent.     But  we  have  no  such 
reason  for  treating  this  antecedent  as  also  a  posterior  term, 
and  seeking  for  its  prior  term  in  a  higher  antecedent.    The 
one  we  see  to  be  a  changeable  and  a  recent  world.     The 
other,  for  aught  we  know,  may  be  an  unchangeable  and 
everlasting  God.    The  one  order,  the  material,  we  know  not 
to  have  been  from  everlasting.      The  other,  the  mental, 
which  by  all  experience  and  analogy  must  have  preceded 
the  material,  bears  no  symptoms  which  we  can  discover 
of  its  ever  having  required  any  remoter  economy  to  call 
it  into  being." 
troph©"8"        What   is    thus   supposed   to   be   proved,  by   historical 
may  itself    records  contained  in  Hebrew  and  other  literatures,  and 
Sals?"     by  physical  vestiges  recognised  in  geology,  seems  to  be 
quence,       only  this — that  the  metamorphoses  which  this  planet  of 
denCTea^"    ours  *ias  Passe(*  through  include  what  are  called  catas- 
tion.  trophes.     It  is  assumed,  moreover,  that  these  catastrophes 


GOD  LATENT  IN  NATURE.  129 


can 


be  explained  only  by  divine  "  interference,"  par- 
ticularly where  part  of  the  issue  is  living  matter,  and, 
above  all,  organisms  which  manifest  self-conscious  life! 
An  economy  into  which  life  has  for  the  first  time  entered, 
is  supposed  to  need  divine  interference  with  the  divine 
natural  order.  But  the  antecedent  creative  Mind  is 
assumed  to  be  Mind  that  had  no  beginning:  inasmuch 
as  our  records  afford  no  evidence  that  the  Mind  which 
suddenly  created  matter,  and  introduced  life  on  this 
globe,  was  itself  an  effect. 

This  argument  fails  to  touch  important  previous  ques-  Historical 
tions,  regarding  legitimate  theological  inference  from  facts  e!i(]ence 
of  experience,  and  the  sort  of  causation  of  which  all  phys-  eternity°of 
ically  scientific  inference  is  the  interpretation.      In  the  ^he  c°smos 
first  place,  it  leaves  the  spiritual  activity  of  providential  ^ulte. 
Mind  in  nature  so  far  an  open  question  that  it  has  to 
be  determined  by  documentary  records  of  what  has  hap- 
pened, instead  of  being  accepted  in  the  inevitable  faith, 
which  when  awakened  enables  man  to  interpret  his  sur- 
roundings more  deeply  than  faith  in  physical  uniformity 
taken  alone  does.     The  eternal  omnipresence  of  God  in 
nature  is  instead  reduced  to  a  contingency,  dependent  on 
records  of  history,  and  accidents  of  observation,  like  the 
existence  of   any  finite    cause    among   the  sequences   in 
nature.     Natural  evolution  is  treated  as  undivine  because 
it  is  also  natural. 

How  can  natural  causation,  with  its  regress  of  dependent  Evolution 
causes,  ever  be  final,  per  se  ?     It  is  always  sending  us  in  of  phe.no" 
quest  of  a  cause  that  is  not  itself  caused.     So  one  finds  at  Sy  op™- 
last  in  natural  causation  a  call  for  a  self-determined  or  a.tive  causa" 

supernatural  Power  that  is  not  merely  a  caused  cause, h°n' 

this  last  being  only  the  sign  of  the  approach  of  its  natural 
successor,  or  physical  effect,  not  the  really  originating 
power.  A  god  who  could  conceivably  have  a  beginning, 
and  who  is  thus  essentially  a  finite  god  ;  or  who  is  inferred 
to  be  unbeginning  only  because  we  have  no  historical 
proof  that  God  ever  began,  is  virtually  thought  of  only 
as  a  part  of  physical  nature,— an  antecedent  that  per- 
haps may  be  eternal  because  we  have  no  record  of  any 
natural  predecessor.     But  are  we  not  obliged  to  bring  to 

I 


130 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  possi- 
bility of 
reading  the 
unbegin- 
niug  and 
unending 
succession 
of  cosmic 
changes  in 
terms  of 
natural 
causation, 
does  not 
supersede 
God. 


the  consideration  of  change,  the  conviction  that  natural 
sequence  must  be  always  dependent  upon  Power  that  is 
independent — the  Universal  Power?  This  preconviction 
does  not  rest  on  any  evidence  which  history  or  external 
nature  might  offer,  in  regard  to  the  beginningness  or 
the  unbeginningness  of  existing  natural  order.  That  order 
may  be  unbeginning,  and  yet  throughout  and  for  ever 
dependent — an  eternally  dependent  cosmos — an  eternally 
divine  evolution — an  endless  progressive  creation. 

Again.  The  progress  of  scientific  interpretation  is  con- 
tinually extending  our  information  about  what  the  natural 
sequences  are.  Scientific  inquiry  discovers  caused  causes, 
which  can  be  presented  to  the  senses  and  represented  in 
sensuous  imagination.  It  thus  fills  gaps  in  the  physical 
succession  that  were  before  conceived  to  be  bridged  over 
by  divine  agency,  which  was  dogmatically  opposed  to 
the  "  causes "  that  alone  concern  physical  science  and 
historical  research.  The  continuity  of  natural  change 
becomes  less  and  less  interrupted  by  gaps,  in  proportion 
as  science  succeeds  in  unravelling  the  intricate  web  of 
natural  causation :  with  each  advance  the  need  is  lessened 
for  interpolating  divine  "  interference  "  to  bridge  over  the 
interval.  But  under  an  enlarged  theological  conception 
of  nature,  what  forbids  the  history  of  this  planet,  through 
all  its  changes,  inorganic  and  organic,  including  the  evolu- 
tion of  its  human  organisms,  being  read  throughout  in 
terms  of  natural  causation  ?  What  forbids  that,  if  not  in 
the  future  progress  of  discovery,  yet  to  the  mind's  eye  of 
higher  intelligence,  the  endless  natural — yet  latently  divine 
— procession  may  arrange  itself  in  an  unbroken  system 
of  caused  causes,  in  which  every  change,  whether  in  the 
history  of  extended  things  or  in  the  history  of  conscious 
lives,  has  its  physical  correlative  ?  This  would  be  the 
Universe  conceived  exhaustively  in  terms  of  natural 
science.  True  as  far  as  it  goes,  this  scientific  reading, 
exclusively  in  terms  of  caused  causality,  is  after  all  in- 
adequate to  the  demands  of  the  higher  homo  mensura 
criterion — which  is  the  divina  mensura  criterion  human- 
ised ;  it  is  not  even  man's  complete  answer  to  his  final 
question.      We   need    to    deepen    this   mechanical  inter- 


GOD  LATENT  IN  NATURE.  131 

pretation  of  nature  by  a  teleological  interpretation,  if, 
even  in  an  unbeginning  and  unending  natural  world,  we 
are  living  in  what  is  finally  a  divine  or  supernatural 
universe. 

The  natural  history  of  the  material   world   is  truly  a  The 
history  of  natural  antecedents,  which  are  metaphorically  n'Xre'*0f 
called  agents.      They  are   to    us  only  signs  of  their  so-  only™ 
called  effects,— signs  through  which  the  Universal  Power  *Jnget™£f 
is  continually  presenting  order,  meaning,  and  adaptations  sequences, 
to  conscious  persons  who  have  appeared  on  this  planet,  in  whicl1'  be" 
the  course  of  its  natural  evolution.     Sensible  signs,  not  sS,are' 
operative  causes,  make  up  the  visible  world.     Nature  is  a  significant 
divine  sense-symbolism  adapted  to  the  use  of  man.    With-  preTabTe". 
out  natural  causes  there  could  be  no  humanly  calculable, 
and  more  or  less  controllable,  course  of  events.     But  if 
really  to  explain  an  event  be  to  assign  its  origin  and  final 
cause,  natural  science  never  explains  anything;   its  pro- 
vince is  only  to  discover  the  divinely  established  custom 
followed  in  the  natural  succession. 

Natural  causation  therefore  need  not  supersede  Divine  Natural 
Providence  always  latent  in  the  natural  universe.     The  ^^helis 
discovery  of   a  physical  cause  is  only   the  discovery  of  sumption?" 
an  additional  illustration  of  the   universal  fact,  that  we  that*^e 
are  having  our  being  in  an  interpretable  world;   which,  which  we 
although  by  us  interpreted  only  in  part,  yet  appeals  to  a  tind  our- 
human  intelligence  that  participates  in   the  omnipresent  physically 
intelligence.     This  presupposes  microcosmic  and  macro-  interpret- 
cosmic  reason — the  one  in  man,  the  other  in  the  universe.  able' 
The  complex  order  of  nature  is  God  continually  speaking 
to  us.     The  elaborate  web,  weaved  according  to  laws  of 
natural  connection,  is  a  means  to  the  end  of  its  being  a 
revelation  to  us  of  each  other  and  of  God.     Living  in  and 
through  this  order,  we  are  living  in  and  through  perpetual 
active  providence ;  in  a  process  which  may  be  without  be- 
ginning, and  may  persist   without  end  — at  once  natural 
and  supernatural — outward  nature  significant  of  the  super- 
nature  with  which  it  is  animated.     So  far  pantheism  ex- 
pands a  narrow  theism.     The  idea  of  constant  divine  or 
orderly  determination  of  universal  nature  is  a  contribution 
to  truth  which  theism  receives  from  pantheism.     "  Men," 


132  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

says  Spinoza,  "  have  been  wont  to  call  that  only  whereof 
the  natural   cause  is   unknown  the   work  of   God.      For 
people  in  general  think  that  the  power  or  providence  of 
God  is  then  most  plainly  manifested,  when  they  perceive 
something  to  happen  in   the  course  of   nature  which  is 
uncommon.      And   in   no    way   do   they   think   that  the 
existence  of  God  may  be  more  clearly  proved  than  from 
this  —  that    external    nature    doth    not   keep    her    order. 
Wherefore   they  deem  that  all  those  set  aside  God  who 
explain  events  by  natural  causes,  or  who  try  to  find  the 
conditions  on  which  events  naturally  depend.      For  they 
suppose  that  God  is  doing  nothing,  as  long  as  nature  is 
moving  on  in  the  accustomed  order;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  powers  of  nature  and  natural  causes  are 
idle  whenever  God  is  acting  by  interference  with  nature. 
They  imagine  therefore  two  powers,  distinct  from  each 
other — to  wit,  the  power  of  God,  and  the  powers  of  natural 
things;    which   last  they   suppose  to  have  been   at  first 
determined  by  God,  or,  as  most  nowadays  express  them- 
selves, to  have  been  created  by  Him.      But  what  they 
mean  by  nature,  and  what  by  God,  they  know  not ;  except 
that  they  suppose  the  power  of  God  to  be  a  sort  of  arbi- 
trary regal  government,  and  that  they  attribute  a  mechani- 
cal force  all  its  own  to  nature.     The  common  herd,  there- 
fore, call  unusual  works  of  nature  miracles,  or  works  of 
God ;  and  partly  out  of  devotion,  partly  out  of  opposition 
to  science,  they  even  wish   to    remain    ignorant  of    the 
natural  causes   of  events,  and  delight  to  hear  of   things 
which  they  are  unable  to  interpret  scientifically,  and  are 
therefore  most  apt  to  adore." 
Does  The  question  at  the  heart  of  this  is— Whether  what  are 

"natural  fa  callecl  natural  causes  should,  otherwise  than  metaphorically, 
explain011  '  be  called  causes.     The  point  to  be  kept  in  view  is,  that 
anything     physical  causation,  with  the  alleged  equivalence  between 
finally?       Us  effects  and  its  causes,  presents  only  a  system  of  inter- 
pretable  signs,  which,  because  orderly,  is  practically  the 
language  of  Divine  Providence.     Natural  science  unfolds 
the  constant  sequences  in  detail,  and  usefully  advances 
our  interpretation  of  our  surroundings;   each  applicable 
scientific  discovery  is  an  illustration  of  its  utility.     The 


GOD  LATENT  IN  NATURE.  133 

old-fashioned  theologian  may  suggest  striking  examples, 
gathered  with  more  or  less  skill,  mostly  from  observation 
of  living  organisms.  But  the  perpetual  evolution  of  the 
cosmos,  charged  throughout  with  natural  order,  and 
throughout  with  means  that  lead  to  ends,  is  the  constant 
miracle  of  God  in  Nature.  Order  is  presumed  inevitable, 
in  moral  faith,  to  be  latent  in  all  that  happens  in  inorganic 
and  organised  nature.  Striking  instances  of  each,  in  the 
form  of  discovered  law  and  manifest  purpose,  embrace 
only  an  insignificant  portion  of  the  illimitable  number 
of  constant  laws  and  adapted  means.  Doubtless  examples 
of  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  are  more  impressive 
to  a  human  mind  in  appearances  presented  by  living 
organisms  than  in  those  of  inorganic  nature.  But  withal 
this,  are  we  not  intellectually  at  liberty  to  read  all  our 
physical  experience  in  the  faith  that  it  is  experience 
of  a  cosmos  in  which  providential  law  and  purpose  are 
omnipresent  and  endless,  present  even  in  things  and 
events  which  seem  to  us  insignificant  ?  The  fall  of  a 
grain  of  sand  is  not  too  insignificant  for  the  application 
of  the  rule  of  providential  gravitation.  Why  should  any 
event  in  the  universe  be  out  of  the  range  of  infinite  omni- 
present providence  ? 

To  determine  between  the  alternative  mysteries  of  a  Natural 
sudden  creation  of  cosmos,  at  a  definite  date  in  the  past,  ^^j™ 
and  the  mystery  of  unbeginning  and  unending  providen-  a  spiritual 
tial  evolution,  perhaps  transcends  human  understanding.  interpreta- 
We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  cosmical  order  may  continuous 
not  have  existed  always — in  dependence  on  the  principle  revelation 
that  makes  us  now  construe  its  phenomena  in  terms  of  present 
order  and  goodness.     We  seem   to  be  born  into  an  un-  active 
beginning  and  unending  divinely  natural  evolution ;  and 
at  any  rate  we  treat  the  world  into  which  we  are  born 
as   an   interpretable   world,   the   significant   language   of 
Divine  Intelligence,  which  even  by  the  intelligence  and 
experience   of   man   is   more  or  less    successfully  inter- 
preted.    Men  are  indeed  dependent  on  the  contingencies 
of  a  narrow  and  broken  experience,  for  their  scientific 
understanding   of   the    qualities  and  behaviour  of   their 
physical   surroundings.     Each   thing  and  person  is  con- 


134  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

nectecl  with  every  other,  in  the  past  and  in  the  distant ; 
so  that  complete  knowledge — unmysterious  knowledge — 
of  anything  is  possible  only  to  omniscience.  Accord- 
ingly, an  unconditional  certainty,  or  absolute  knowledge, 
of  all  the  natural  causes  and  all  the  ends  of  the  things 
presented  in  experience  is  unattainable.  Yet  human  life 
rests  on  the  faith,  that  a  working  intelligence  on  our  part 
of  the  Intelligence  that  is  operative  in  nature  is  within 
our  reach — that  in  this  intercourse  with  the  Intellect  that 
is  latent  in  nature,  human  intellect  need  not  be  put  to  con- 
fusion by  nature  in  the  end.  When  we  try  to  interpret 
nature  as  a  symbolism,  we  often  find  our  hypothetical 
interpretations  verified  by  the  event ;  although  there  is 
for  us  no  demonstrable  certainty  that,  with  innumerable 
unknown  powers  in  existence,  what  now  seems  verified 
will  be  undisturbed.  This  implies  final  trust  in  harmony 
between  the  course  of  nature  and  the  thought  of  man, 
which,  as  we  saw,  was  not  foreign  even  to  Hume.  The 
physical  relations  of  things  presented  to  our  senses  are 
treated  in  our  scientific  interpretations  as  intelligible  lan- 
guage. That  this  natural  language  can  in  some  measure  be 
interpreted  by  man,  the  gradual  growth  of  man's  science 
of  nature  is  matter-of-fact  proof.  May  we  not  therefore 
believe  that,  in  our  surrounding  universe,  we  are  continu- 
ally in  the  presence  of  Providential  Power  that  is  uni- 
versally and  eternally  revealing  itself  in  the  articulate 
language  of  natural  causes  ?  Are  we  not,  when  in  presence 
of  external  nature,  in  a  condition  which  may  be  compared 
to  that  in  which  we  are  when  in  presence  of  a  human 
being  who  is  speaking  to  us,  or  employing  signs  that 
enable  us  to  think  his  thoughts  ?  Order  and  ends,  in  the 
natural  economy  into  which  we  enter  at  birth,  may  be 
legitimately  taken  as  the  visible  expression  of  a  Power 
which  perhaps  eternally  uses  Matter  for  self -revelation 
to  persons,  even  as  men  use  their  bodily  organs  in  com- 
municating with  one  another ; — but  with  this  signal  differ- 
ence, that  the  natural  succession,  as  well  as  the  Power  at 
work  in  and  through  it,  may  be  unbeginning  and  unending, 
while  the  words  of  men  are  transitory  conventional  signs. 
The  finally  spiritual  interpretation  of  all  natural  causation 


GOD  LATENT  IN  NATURE.  135 

is  equally  valid,  or  at  least  equally  incapable  of  disproof, 
however  complex  the  natural  links  may  be,  and  whatever 
obstacles  may  thus  be  offered  to  scientific  discovery. 
If  natural  causation  is  all  ultimately  divine,  no  increase 
in  our  physical  knowledge  of  the  special  causes  or  laws 
which  constitute  the  visible  succession  can  dissolve  the 
spiritual  significance  that  is  present  in  each  caused  cause 
and  in  the  Whole. 

The  very  complexity  of  the  web  of  natural  causation,  Thecom- 
which  man  finds  that  he  is  able  only  with  difficulty  to  Sexity  of 
unravel  scientifically,  may  perhaps  itself  be  regarded  as  andconse-' 
an  example  of  adaptation  of  ends  to  means — when  this  quentdiffi- 

CUltlGS     6(1- 

complexity  is    considered  in  its  relation  to   man.      The  ucatemind 
intricate  constitution  of  the  cosmos  seems  to  be  fitted  by  and  char- 
its  elaborateness  for  educating  human  intelligence,   and  man. 
provides  the  moral  discipline  involved  in  painful  mastery 
of  the  scientific  secrets  of  nature.     It  may  even  suggest 
with  more  emphasis  than  a  simpler  constitution,  the  con- 
stant presence  of  Active  Reason ;  and  in  a  way  apt  to 
induce  reverential  faith  or  adoration,  when   the  natural 
language   costs  time  and  labour   to  find  its  meaning,  or 
when  it  is  physically  interpretable  only  tentatively,  and 
at  last  only  to  a  small  extent,  chiefly  for  the  operative 
purposes  and  increase  of  social  happiness. 

The  basis  of  human  life  and  experience  is  found  in  the  The  cardi- 
faith  that  the  evolving  universe  must  he  charged  with  per-  Jjf  J?k 
fectly  good  meaning  and  purpose.     This  does  not  depend  that  the' 
on  the  transcendent  alternative  of  whether  the  natural  ^J^ch 
order,  with  its  divine  meanings  and  adaptations,  had  an  we  awake 
absolute  beginning,  or  is,  on  the   contrary,  an  unbegin-  at  birth  is 

,       °         , . &'  '  .  .     J '  ,  °         cosmic,  not 

ning  and   unending   revelation   of   omnipotent   goodness,  chaotic; 
Either  way,  we  are  living  and  moving  and  having  our  notTh3 
being  in  the  midst  of  an  intelligible  natural  revelation,  it  ever,  be- 
out  of  which  human  sciences  gradually  construct  them-  sMl  to  he- 
selves.     As  the  relations  of  natural  causality  are  intelli- 
gible, while  they  are  independent  of  the  human  investi- 
gators, true  science  of  nature,  so  far  from  contradicting 
the  supposition  that  man  entered  at  birth  into  an  essen- 
tially intelligible  or  divine  universe,  proceeds  throughout 
all  its  inquiries,  experiments,  and  verifications,  upon  this 


136 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  need 
which  im- 
pels us  to 
one  or  other 
of  these  al- 
ternatives, 
instead  of 
resting  in 
the  fact 
that  we, 
somehow, 
find  our- 
selves in  a 
physical 
cosmos. 


Lotze  on 
the  materi- 
alistic or 


tacit  assumption,  as  its  ultimate  and  indispensable  work- 
ing hypothesis.  If  we  are  to  form  any  conception  of  the 
Universal  Power,  it  must  be  the  conception  of  Power  that 
is  unconscious,  or  else  of  Power  that  is  intelligent.  The 
alternatives  are  a  material  or  a  spiritual  conception  of  the 
Power  finally  at  work  in  nature,  with  which  man  is  in- 
vited to  co-operate,  by  adapting  natural  sequences  to  his 
own  ends.     Vincitur  parenclo. 

I  may  be  asked,  whether  there  is  human  need  or  room 
for  determining  between  those  alternatives.  Can  man 
proceed  further  than  practically  to  recognise  that  in  fact 
he  is  living  in  a  physically  interpretable  universe.  Now  I 
do  not  find  that  I  am  arrested  at  this  point,  For  I  do 
find  that  what  are  called  "  natural  causes,"  so  far  as  my 
knowledge  carries  me,  are  not  causes  in  their  own  right. 
I  find  no  evidence  that  matter  can  originate  change,  or 
even  that  the  term  "  agent "  is  intelligible,  until  one 
has  had  experience  of  personal  agents  in  self-conscious 
activity.  I  touched  on  this  in  the  lectures  on  material- 
ism and  egoism,  and  I  must  return  to  it  in  the  sequel. 
To  rationality  in  nature,  all,  including  materialists,  virtu- 
ally make  their  final  appeal.  To  find  with  the  biologist 
what  the  physical  conditions  are  under  which  a  human 
being  begins  sentient  and  self-conscious  life,  is  not  to  ex- 
plain conscious  intelligence.  Matter,  as  we  perceive  it, 
explains  nothing  finally.  Motion  of  molecules  can  only  ex- 
plain motion  in  other  molecules,  and  not  even  this  finally ; 
for  there  is  no  perceptible  connection  between  contact  of 
moving  masses  in  space,  and  the  motion  of  other  masses 
which  follows.  All  one  can  say  is,  that  we  expect  the 
latter  in  faith,  when  we  see  the  former.  The  former  is  to 
us  the  intelligible  sign,  and  so  the  foundation  of  the  natural 
prophecy,  or  scientific  prevision,  upon  which  we  proceed  as 
a  venture  of  faith.  The  world  presented  to  the  senses  is, 
as  it  were,  a  Divine  Book  of  Prophecy  :  if  it  is  undivine  it 
may  in  the  end  deceive  :  a  suspected  witness  cannot  verify 
anything. 

Consistent  undivine  materialism  is  impossible ;  but  the 
numerous  unconscious  assumptions  of  materialists  conceal 
this.    "  The  materialistic  assumption,"  as  Lotze  says,  "  takes 


GOD  LATENT  IN  NATURE.  137 

upon  itself  to  show  how,  from  bare   properties  of  space  undivineal- 
occupancy — divisibility,  inertia,  and  mobility,  the  whole  ternative. 
universe,   and   therefore  its   spiritual   constituents,  could 
be  naturally  developed ;  without  admixture  of  any  other 
principle    or    cause    whatever.      Now,    psychology   com- 
pels  us   to  see   that  motions  in  matter,   or  in    material 
organisms,  are  only  the  occasions  upon  which  there  arise 
in  us  spiritual  processes,  such  as  sensations  and  thoughts. 
But  why  these  occasions  are  followed  by  those  spiritual 
states   is    not   only  not   a   subject  of  possible   empirical 
knowledge,  but  it  is  even  possible  to  see  that  man  can 
never  reach   the  point   where  it  could   be  demonstrated 
that    a    mode    of    motion,    even    in    the    most   curiously 
elaborated   aggregate   of    molecules,   must    cease    to    re- 
main a  mode  of  motion,  and  would  be  under  an  absolute 
necessity  to   transform  itself  into   a  process  of  self-con- 
scious  life.      According   to    all    ascertainable   principles, 
from  motions  alone  nothing  but  a  new  distribution,  pro- 
pagation,   or   arrest   of   motions   can  issue.      A  spiritual 
sequence  can  be  attached  to  them  only  indirectly — that 
is,  through   their  dependent  relation  to   something  else, 
which  in  itself  possesses  capacity   for  the  manifestation 
of  spiritual  processes.     Hence,  in  each  particular  instance, 
as   well    as    in    the    totality   of   the    universe,   a   barely 
material  ultimate  principle,  in  which  matter  is  endowed 
only  with  those  characteristics  which  are  known   by  us 
to  belong  to  it,  is  incapable  of  originating  the  world  of 
spiritual  processes."     The  conception  of  the  universe,  as 
fundamentally    spiritual,   is,   therefore,    deeper    than    the 
conception    of    it,   as    ultimately    only    an    evolution    of 
atoms— physically  true,  so  far  as  it  goes,  as  this  last  con- 
ception may  be.     For  there  is  no  necessary  inconsistency 
between  the  moral  venture  involved   in   theism  and  the 
scientific  conjecture  that   fire-mist  was   the  physical  be- 
ginning of  our  solar  system. 

God  latent  in  nature  is  the  tacit  fundamental  postulate  Ourreveia- 
of  the  faith  which  is  the  foundation  of  natural  science.  tiou °f G?d 
But  it  is  the  revelation  that  is  latent  in  the  spirit  of  man  primarily 
that  supplies  the  key  to  the  divine  interpretation  even  of  °nourPhy- 
the  material   world.      Apart  from  this,  the  outer  world,  sicalnature- 


138  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

with  its  natural  laws  and  ends,  is  darkness ;  for  external 
nature,  apart  from  the  higher  life  found  in  man,  even 
conceals  the  God  whom  it  nevertheless  reveals,  when  it 
is  looked  at  in  the  light  of  the  moral  postulates  and  our 
spiritual  consciousness.  I  proceed  accordingly  to  look 
at  Man  as— at  least  for  Man— an  image  or  symbol  of 
the  Universal  Power. 


139 


LECTURE    II. 

IDEAL   MAN   AN   IMAGE   OF   GOD. 

Last  lecture  was  partly  intended  to  show,  that  obligation  Retrospect, 
to  presuppose  divine  or  perfect  order  and  purpose  omni- 
present in  nature  is  independent  of  the  question,  whether 
the  natural  evolution  had  a  beginning;  and  to  suggest 
that  even  if  we  have  been  ushered  into  a  cosmos  that 
had  _  no  beginning,  we  find  ourselves  now  living  and 
moving  and  having  our  being  amidst  surroundings  that 
must  be  presupposed  to  be  eternally  trustworthy  or 
divine,  as  a  condition  of  their  being  even  physically 
interpretable. 

But  of  whose  intelligence  is  universal  nature  the  ex-  Man  and 
pression  ?  What  about  the  ordering  or  designing  Power  ?  the  ™ver- 
What  is  meant  by  supernaturalness  ?  Have  we  any  ex-  sensible> 
ample  in  experience  or  its  implicates  of  a  cause  superior 
to  the  causes  alone  recognised  in  physical  science  ?  Do 
we  not  find  in  ourselves — in  the  ego — an  implied  super- 
naturalness,  which  introduces  meaning  into  the  term 
"power,"  and  may  supply  an  analogy  to  divinity  omni- 
present in  nature — the  microcosm  in  man  to  the  macro- 
cosm which  analogously  reveals  God  ?  These  questions 
lead  us  up  to  Man — an  embodied  moral  being,  who  shares 
in  divine  reason,  and  who,  as  a  personally  responsible 
agent,  is  connected  with  the  divine  centre  of  a  moral 
world  to  which  outward  nature  is  in  harmonious  subor- 
dination. Under  this  final  conception,  every  advance  of 
the  natural  sciences  deepens  and  enriches  man's  concep- 
tion of  God.     When  an  event  can  be  referred  to  a  natural 


140 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Man  in- 
spired. 


Organic 
conditions 
not  the 
self-con- 
scious life 
itself. 


Self-con- 
scious in- 
telligence. 


cause,  it  is  not  by  this  divorced  from  God,  if  all  natural 
causation  is  divine. 

One  seems  to  find  the  signal  example  of  the  divine  in 
the  spirit  of  man.  In  his  Common  Keason,  or  Eational 
Sense,  one  finds  "  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  which 
giveth  understanding."  We  see  in  man  a  being  at  once 
natural  and  supernatural — intermediate  between  brute  and 
Deity — with  intelligence  and  experience  that  is  neither 
nescience  nor  Omniscience, — equally  unable,  as  Pascal 
suggests,  to  know  all,  and  to  be  ignorant  of  all ;  who  is 
great  even  in  knowing  himself  to  be  miserable  ;  who  lives 
by  interpreting  the  future  through  the  past. 

The  visible  organic  conditions  under  which  conscious- 
ness makes  its  appearance  in  man,  in  terms  of  which  its 
gradual  development  may  be  expressed  in  biology,  is  surely 
not  the  moral  and  spiritual  life— actually  felt,  thought,  and 
acted,  although  invisible — of  which  the  organic  motions 
are  only  the  natural  occasion.  Conscious  intelligence  is 
manifested  in  and  through  visible  processes  in  nature; 
but  those  visible  processes  are  not  the  invisible  con- 
sciousness. Faith  that  I  am  in  a  divine  or  interpretable 
world  involves  more  than  perception  of  what  is  sense- 
presented.  That  sense  appearances  are  virtually  signifi- 
cant language,  I  take  on  trust— without  having  it  demon- 
strated ;  it  is  the  fundamental  postulate  in  natural  science, 
as  well  as  in  every  calculated  movement  in  daily  life.  A 
chaos  of  letters  of  the  alphabet,  presented  in  a  heap,  is 
not  to  be  confounded  with  the  same  letters  organised  in  a 
book,  and  charged  with  meaning,  so  that  the  reader  finds 
the  outside  book  in  intellectual  affinity  with  his  own  in- 
telligence. Man  treats  nature  in  the  faith  that,  in  trying 
to  reduce  its  phenomena  to  science,  he  is  trying  to  read  an 
intelligible  natural  Book. 

But  living  consciousness  is  more  than  this  latent  in- 
telligibility ;  more,  too,  than  the  sensuous  phenomena  in 
which  the  reason  latent  in  nature  receives  expression. 
Intelligibility,  abstracted  from  a  living  thinker,  is  an 
empty  abstraction.  Let  us  suppose  all  conscious  life  in 
the  universe  suddenly  annihilated.  What  then  becomes 
of  the  latent  interpretability  of  natural  phenomena :  or  of 


IDEAL    MAN    AN    IMAGE    OF    GOD.  141 

the  phenomena  themselves,  which,  on  pain  of  total  scepti- 
cism, we  are  obliged  to  presuppose  interpretable,  and 
therefore  in  correspondence  with  intellect — the  macro- 
cosm in  analogy  with  the  microcosm? 

It  is  to  the  necessary  implicates  of  rational  conscious-  Conscious 
ness  in  man,  not  to  phenomena  presented  to  the  senses,  j&jfjjj -the 
that  we  should  look  for  the  true  key,  at  least  the  best  key  world, 
within  man's  reach.  And  rational  consciousness  is  not 
proved  to  have  its  necessary  correlative  in  organised 
phenomena  of  matter.  But  if  this  could  be  physiologically 
proved,  so  that  a  scientific  equivalent  for  each  conscious 
state  could  be  found  in  the  organism,  this  minor  monism 
would  still  leave  rational  consciousness  and  its  implicates, 
not  things  without,  as  our  final  criterion.  Whether 
human  perception  is  a  transitory  or  a  permanent  fact  in 
the  universe,  Matter,  apart  from  all  perception,  is  an  un- 
realisable  abstraction.  Conscious  life  is  the  indispensable 
light  of  the  world.  The  sciences  themselves — physical, 
chemical,  biological — exist  only  in  or  through  the  con- 
scious activity  of  a  person ;  so  that  it  is  through  spiritual 
life  and  agency  that  existence  is  realised  in  sensation 
or  in  science.  Living  science  must  be  a  function  of  con- 
scious life.  The  biologist,  in  his  science,  reads  intelli- 
gible symbols,  in  the  form  of  organic  processes.  Each 
of  his  discoveries  presupposes  an  invisible  mental  act. 
Success  in  science  depends  upon  the  living  intellectual 
development  of  the  discoverer.  And  the  validity  of  his 
discoveries  depends  at  last  upon  mental  presuppositions, 
which  he  has  to  make  in  faith.  He  assumes,  without 
proof,  orderly  constancy  in  nature;  for  otherwise  his 
expectations  and  scientific  verifications  have  no  ground 
to  rest  on.  Actual  experience  is  only  of  the  past  and 
present :  we  cannot  forecast  the  future  without  an  unde- 
monstrated  trust  in  the  orderly  constancy  or  rationality 
of  external  nature.  The  very  power  the  biologist  claims 
of  being  able  to  infer  that  he  himself,  with  his  rational 
consciousness  and  all  its  implicates,  is  only  a  natural 
issue  of  the  evolution  of  the  material  world — this  power 
must  itself  be  referred  to  his  rational  consciousness. 
All  this  makes  man  and  his  divine  experience  the  most 


142 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  inade- 
quacy of 
merely  bio- 
logical in- 
terpreta- 
tions. 


The  lan- 
guage of 
Nature  and 
Comte's 
maxim. 


significant  revelation  of  what  God  is  that  the  universe 
presents  to  man.  Man,  the  microcosm,  is  the  unique 
example,  in  which,  if  anywhere  within  experience,  religion 
finds  an  "  image "  of  the  infinite  God.  The  ideal  man 
is  for  us  the  symbol  of  God  in  nature.  The  finite  spirit, 
incarnate  in  his  body,  is  the  symbol  of  Infinite  Spirit, 
incarnate  in  the  universe.  As  the  highest  form  of  human 
experience — the  spiritual  life  of  man  in  its  full  develop- 
ment may  be  said  to  signify  to  man  what  is  final  or 
supreme  in  the  infinite  reality,  revealing  God  in  the  only 
way  God  can  be  apprehended  by  man. 

Hence  the  philosophical  inadequacy  of  all  merely  bio- 
logical interpretations  of  man, — their  inadequacy,  meas- 
ured even  by  our  modest  intellectual  resources,  as  well 
as  for  our  moral  and  religious  constitution.  A  wholly 
physiological  account  of  "  action  "  and  "  reaction  "  between 
man's  animal  organism  and  its  material  environment,  under 
natural  law  of  selection,  omits  the  necessary  spiritual  im- 
plicates of  supernatural  reason  and  moral  agency.  For 
it  is  these  that  reveal  God, — so  far  as  Infinite  Being  can 
be  revealed  to  an  intelligence  intermediate  between  total 
nescience  and  Omniscience.  It  is  through  that  which  is 
found  by  reflection  in  man's  invisible  life  of  consciousness, 
not  through  that  which  is  presented  to  any  or  all  of  his 
external  senses,  that  the  world  assumes  for  him  its  final 
interpretation. 

The  progress  of  the  physical  sciences  is  evidence  that 
nature  is  a  continued  discourse  on  the  part  of  the  Uni- 
versal Power,  addressed  to  man  in  the  significant  language 
of  natural  causes.  Scientific  intercourse  with  the  uni- 
verse is  intelligence  in  intercourse  with  intelligence — man 
learning  to  think  some  of  the  divine  thought  that  is 
latent  in  the  cosmos.  Yet  curiously  it  was  a  maxim  of 
Comte,  that  the  heavens  declare  no  other  glory  than  that 
of  Hipparchus,  Kepler,  Newton,  and  the  other  illustrious 
astronomers,  who  have  interpreted  some  of  the  language 
that  is  uttered  by  the  masses  of  matter  that  occupy  infinite 
space.  If  this  is  so,  the  glory  of  Newton's  '  Principia '  is 
not  the  glory  of  Newton,  but  only  of  those  readers  of  the 
'  Principia '  who  are  able  to  understand  its  physical  theo- 


IDEAL    MAN    AN    IMAGE    OF    GOD.  143 

ries  and  demonstrations.  If  the  Book  of  Nature  receives 
from  the  astronomical  discoverer  the  meaning  which  it  is 
found  to  express,  must  not  the  book. which  was  supposed 
to  make  Newton  illustrious  receive  its  meaning,  not  from 
Newton,  but  from  its  intelligent  readers  ? 

But  it  is  in  man's  life  as  a  moral  being,  in  the  respon-  Reason  and 
sible  exercise  of  deliberate  Will,  even  more  than  in  man  wm  *n^ 
divinely  inspired  with  Reason,  that  the  facts  of  inward  pSnaTural," 
experience  refuse  to  be  read  only  in  terms  of  external  beca\isenot 
natural  science ; — this  too  after  account  is  taken  of  the  Lpikabie. 
inherited  results  of  organic  and  extra-organic  interaction, 
in  the  history  of  the  animal  ancestors  of  each  human 
organism,  and  also  of  the  history  of  the  whole  material 
world  of  which  a  human  body  is  of  course  a  part.  It  is 
by  possession  of  morally  responsible  will  that  man  rises 
as  a  person  above  all  that  is  physical  and  impersonal. 
His  moral  personality  is  the  type  of  the  divine  principle 
at  the  heart  of  existence.  Is  not  responsible  will  in  man 
supernatural,  self-determined,  not  determined  by  his  organ- 
ism :  so  that  man  may  be  said  to  hold  the  unique  position 
of  being  at  once  an  outcome  of  physical  evolution,  and 
yet  a  creative  agent  in  respect  of  all  acts  for  which 
he  is  justly  responsible  ?  Reason  and  Will  cannot  be 
refunded  into  the  caused  causes  of  science:  in  spiritual 
action  man  erects  himself,  as  a  personal  agent,  above 
himself  as  merely  an  issue  of  the  natural  evolutionary 
sequence.  Unless  above  himself  as  merely  a  part  of 
visible  nature,  he  can  erect  himself  into  an  active  rational 
or  supernatural  agent,  how  mean  a  thing  is  man.  If  he 
is  under  moral  obligation  to  obey  moral  law,  he  cannot 
be  wholly  a  part  of  the  dependent  causal  mechanism. 
The  way  of  looking  at  the  universe  that  makes  visible 
nature  and  natural  causation  the  highest  measure  of  reality 
must  be  inadequate  as  a  philosophical  theory,  if  man  is 
an  agent  who  is  responsible  for  anything  that  he  does. 

Rationality  and  morality  in   man    both   involve  more  Science  and 
than    outward   physical   sequence.      The    dogma   of    the  !lloialit-v 
speculative  naturalist,  that  the  outer  world  acts  upon  man  ply  more 
mechanically,  as  bodies  in  motion  "act"  upon  bodies  atthannat" 


144 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


ural  se- 
quence. 


The  ulti- 
mate mys- 
teries of 
infinite 
physical 
regress  and 
of  moral 
causation. 


rest,  so  that  scientific  interpretation  of  experience  by  a 
human  discoverer  is  itself  only  a  physical  effect  of  natural 
causality  on  his  body, — is  a  dogma  which  omits  man's 
participation  in  divine  reason,  and  his  consequent  power 
of  distinguishing  between  fancy  and  reality,  which  science 
implies.  Its  defect  is  no  less  obvious,  when  the  natur- 
alist argues,  that  the  relation  of  motives  to  acts  for  which 
a  human  agent  is  responsible  must  be  the  same  in  kind 
as  the  relation  which  one  body  bears  to  another  body, 
when  motion  in  the  one  follows  impact  by  another  in 
motion ;  for  this  leaves  out  of  account  that  superiority 
to  physical  nature  which  personal  responsibility  involves : 
a  natural  cause  is  not  morally  responsible  for  any  of  its 
physical  effects.  Intellectual  power  of  distinguishing  be- 
tween transitory  appearances  and  the  deeper  relations 
which  they  signify — between  sensation  and  natural  science 
itself — is  a  power  in  which  man  erects  himself,  as  super- 
natural, above  himself  as  only  a  part  of  nature.  But 
the  moral  power  of  making  a  responsible  choice  between 
good  and  evil  in  action  is  emphatically  that  in  which 
inan  is  free,  either  to  erect  himself  above  the  tempta- 
tions of  sense,  or  to  let  his  proper  personality  be  merged 
in  physical  nature. 

In  man  two  ultimate  mysteries  seem  to  meet— the  mys- 
tery in  which  scientific  causation  merges,  and  the  mystery 
of  moral  or  immoral  will  in  a  finite  being.  In  scientific 
causation  we  become  involved  in  the  mystery  of  eternal 
succession:  since  no  natural  cause  is  self-determined, 
each  presupposes  an  anterior  natural  cause,  every  cause 
in  the  regress  being  only  a  caused  cause.  Our  self- 
determining  intelligence  and  responsibility  for  personal 
acts  contradicts  supposed  universality  of  natural  causa- 
tion, and  puts  us  face  to  face  with  an  originating  agent, 
to  whom  originative  power  is  attributed.  Man,  interme- 
diate between  the  nescient  and  the  omniscient,  can  neither 
imagine  nor  comprehend  the  universal  reality  in  either 
of  these  ways.  He  cannot  comprehend  an  unbegin- 
ning  and  unending  evolution  among  orderly  dependent 
changes,  nor  can  he  comprehend  a  universe  that  contains 
self -determining  agents.      Natural  causation  in  its  ulti- 


IDEAL    MAN    AN    IMAGE    OF    GOD.  145 

mate  implicates,  and  morally  responsible  agency  in  its 
ultimate  implicates,  must  both  be  incompletely  intelligible. 
Each  conception  is  necessarily  mysterious,  in  an  intel- 
ligence that  can  comprehend  and  judge  only  in  part,  or 
from  the  side,  not  at  the  infinite  centre.  But  this  incom- 
pleteness deprives  man  of  the  knowledge  which  can  assert 
that  natural  causation,  on  the  one  hand,  and  morally  re- 
sponsible acts  of  which  the  human  agent,  not  the  Power 
that  is  omnipresent  in  nature,  is  the  originating  source,, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  necessarily  contradictory  concep- 
tions. Man's  ultimate  conception  of  natural  causation 
is^  not  complete  enough  to  justify  the  conclusion  that  a 
wicked  act  must  be  determined  by  the  Universal  Power 
that  is  revealed  in  the  sequences  of  nature,  and  not  by 
the  person  who  is  regarded  in  moral  reason  as  respon- 
sible for  it.  The  existence  of  finite  agents,  who  are 
responsible  for  what  ought  not  to  enter  into  existence, 
and  therefore  had  no  necessity  for  existing,  is  accordingly 
not  impossible :  man's  experience  of  remorse  is  a  practical 
proof  that  this  independence  is  true  of  man  in  fact. 
Conscience  points  to  acts  of  persons  whose  ^/-originat- 
ing causality  can  be  brought  home  to  them  by  conscience. 
This  moral  experience  introduces  a  deeper  meaning  into 
the  term  "  power  "  than  when  it  is  affirmed  of  externally 
caused  causes.  An  immoral  act  must  originate  in  the 
immoral  agent ;  a  physical  effect  is  not  known  to  originate 
in  its  physical  cause. 

Thus  cosmic  faith  and  moral  faith  are  both  alike  con- 
cerned with  what  is  incompletely  intelligible — mysterious 
under  the  limiting  conditions  of  man's  Embodied  reason : 
neither  can  be  proved  to  be  incapable  of  reconciliation  in 
a  higher  than  human  intelligence.  Faith  in  physical 
necessity  need  not  subvert  faith  in  what  is  higher  than 
physical  necessity— yet  not  proved  to  be  inconsistent  with 
physical  order,  and  the  assumption  at  the  foundation  of 
natural  science. 

The  profound   question  of   the    relation    between   em 


Cosmic 
faith  ami 
moral 
faith. 


Natural 


^  _^ w^        v,....^       iviuuivii        uV/i/Y»ccn       cin-     -manual 

bodied  responsible  agents  and  the  divine  order  of  external  order  aij 
nature   is   suggested   by    Professor    Huxley's   interesting  ^£cy? 


146  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

essay  on    the   hypothesis   that    animals  —  including   the 
human  animal — are  only  sentient  automata.      "  It  seems 
to  me,"  he  says,  "  that  in  men  as  in  brutes  there  is  no  proof 
that  any  state  of  consciousness  is  the  cause  of  change  in 
the  motion  of  the  matter  of  the  organism.  ...  It  follows 
that  our  mental  conditions   are  simply  the   symbols  in 
consciousness  of  changes  which  take  place  automatically 
in  the  organism  ;  and  that,  to  take  an  extreme  illustration, 
the  feeling  we  call  volition  is  not  the  cause  of  a  voluntary 
act,  but  the  symbol  of  that  state  of  the  brain  which  is  the 
immediate  cause  of  that  act."     So  viewed,  men  are  only 
physical   organisms,   not  persons:    they   are    visible   and 
tangible  things;  with  each  of  which  conscious  life  is  in- 
explicably connected,— sentient  intelligence  in  man  being 
more  developed  in  its  organism  than  in  any  other  animal 
organism  on  this  planet.     But  in  all  animals  alike,  con- 
scious life  is  powerless :  it  is  to  be  discounted  as  wholly 
irrelevant,  at  least  in  the  scientific  explanation  of  man. 
The  metamorphoses  which  the  material  world  undergoes, 
in  the   persistent  processes  of   natural  causation   which 
science  tries  to  formulate,  are  all  independent  of  the  self- 
conscious  ego.     Man  is  not  entitled,  notwithstanding  felt 
responsibility   for  his   acts,  to  be  included    as   a  _  factor. 
Invisible  conscious  agency  is  not  agency;  there  is   only 
evolution  of  visible  phenomena  from  visible  antecedents. 
We  are  deluded,  it  seems,  when  we  suppose  originating 
personal  agency  ;   for  no   act  of  human  will  can  ^  either 
increase  or  diminish  molecular  motion  in  the  brain :   all 
cerebral    motions    must    be    naturally   caused    by    other 
motions,  organic  or  extra-organic,  under  laws   which  it 
is  the  office  of  biological  science  to  find  and  formulate. 
Must  But  although  biology  may  reasonably  confine  itself  to 

"spirit and  generalising  natural  sequences  of  physical  phenomena,  I 
eitr^e      am  unable'  to  see  with  Huxley  how  this  can  justify  "  the 
"banished  gradual  banishment  from  all  regions  of  human  thought  of 
m°anhU"      what  we    call   spirit   and   spontaneity;"    for  by  "spon- 
thought"?   taneity"  I  suppose  he  means  acts  which,  when  regarded 
as  morally  referable  to  an  agent,  are  inferred  to  be  there- 
fore free  from  "natural  necessities,"  on   account  of   the 
agent's  sole  responsibility  for  them.    Instead  of  this  banish- 


IDEAL    MAN    AN    IMAGE    OF    GOD.  147 

merit  of  "  spontaneity,"  biology,  like  every  science  of  visible 
nature,  seems  to  place  us  face  to  face  with  the  question 
suggested  by  the  relation  between  material  nature  and 
finite  persons  to  whom  moral  responsibility  is  attributed. 
It  makes  the  philosopher  ask  how  the  numerous  seeming 
"interferences"  of  moral  and  immoral  agents  with  the 
course  of  nature  can  be  reconciled  with  the  exclusive 
sufficiency  of  visible  causation  which  biological  naturalism 
presumes.  Moral  responsibility  for  a  human  act  depends 
upon  the  human  agent  who  is  morally  praised  or  blamed 
for  it  being,  so  far,  independent  of  the  natural  causation 
to  which  "  states  of  the  brain  "  are  subject.  Community 
between  the  mind  that  is  manifested  consciously  in  man, 
and  the  Mind  latent  in  nature,  and  signified  to  man  by 
interpretable  sensuous  signs,  is  the  religious  postulate  of 
science.  _  The  possession  of  power  that  is  above  conditions 
of  physical  causation  seems  indispensable  to  an  act  for 
which  the  apparent  agent  can  be  morally  praised  or 
blamed ;  although  the  relation  of  man's  moral  or  immoral 
acts  to  the  supreme  order  and  purpose  can  be  only  im- 
perfectly understood  by  him,  if  our  conception  of  physical 
causality  and  our  conception  of  moral  and  immoral  agency 
must  be  ultimately  incomplete  or  mysterious. 

The  exclusion  of  all  spiritual  questions,  not  only  from  Conse- 
biology  as  a  wholly  physical  science,  but  also  from  "all  quent para- 
human  thought,"  seems  to  land  the  consistent  thinker  in  '  "es" 
curious  paradoxes.  If  rational  and  volitional  conscious 
life,  and  all  that  is  involved  in  this,  are  only  irrelevant 
accidents  in  the  universe,  it  seems  to  follow  that  all 
changes^  would  have  occurred  exactly  as  they  have  oc- 
curred, if  rational  and  volitional  consciousness  had  never 
arisen  in  the  universe.  The  effects  in  nature  with  which 
men  are  credited  or  discredited  must  all  be  placed,  in 
that  case,  to  the  credit  or  discredit  of  the  Universal 
Power  manifested  in  nature.  What  are  called  pro- 
ductions of  mind  must  be  conceived  as  only  part  of 
the  natural  issue  of  human  organisms.  The  books  con- 
tained in  the  world,  for  example,  would  have  become 
what  they  are  by  a  law  of  natural  selection,  under  which 
their  visible  contents  might  have  been  evolved  as  we  have 


148 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Sense  phe- 
nomena 
can  be  sig- 
nificant of 
conscious 
persons 
and  their 
intentions. 


them,  yet  without  consciousness  on  the  part  of  supposed 
authors  and  printers.  The  brilliant  additions  to  scientific 
literature  for  which  we  are  grateful  to  Professor  Huxley, 
when  we  refer  them  to  his  conscious  agency,  are  only  the 
natural  issue  of  the  organism  that  bore  his  name,  itself 
one  of  the  issues  of  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  material 
world :  his  published  works  might  have  existed  exactly  as 
they  exist  now,  if  neither  his  conscious  life  nor  any  other 
had  ever  made  its  appearance.  Indeed  if  consciousness 
and  personal  activity  are  irrelevant  accidents  in  the 
procession  of  molecular  changes,  what  proof  can  I  have 
that  at  this  moment  mine  is  not  the  solitary  conscious 
life,  in  a  world  empty  of  all  other  conscious  beings  ?  On 
what  reasonable  ground  can  I  assert  that  I  am  now  in  the 
presence  of  conscious  persons ;  or  how  can  one  reason- 
ably believe  that  the  words  he  hears  spoken  are  not  un- 
dulations of  the  air,  that  have  been  naturally  caused  by 
molecular  motions  in  a  visible  organism,  themselves  the 
natural  issue  of  molecular  changes  in  surrounding  nature, 
conveyed,  all  unconsciously,  under  natural  laws  to  an 
organ  of  hearing  ?  Although  I  suppose  I  am  now  sur- 
rounded by  conscious  agents,  perhaps  I  am  in  the  pre- 
sence of  unconscious  automatic  organisms. 

In  Berkeley's  '  Minute  Philosopher,'  Euphranor,  the 
religious  interlocutor,  in  the  dialogue  which  concerns  the 
religious  conception  of  the  universe,  suggests  that  we  all 
have  as  clear  and  immediate  a  certainty  of  the  providential 
activity  of  God  as  each  of  us  has  of  the  existence  of  persons 
around  him  when  he  sees  them  speak  or  act.  "  What ! " 
rejoins  Alciphron,  the  sceptical  interlocutor,  "  what  !  do 
you  pretend  you  can  have  the  same  assurance  of  the  being 
of  a  God  that  you  can  have  of  mine,  whom  you  actually 
see  standing  before  you  and  talking  to  you  ? "  "  The 
very  same,  if  not  greater,"  is  the  reply.  "How  do  you 
make  this  appear?"  asks  Alciphron.  "By  the  person 
Alciphron,"  Euphranor  answers,  "  is  meant  an  individual 
tliinking  person,  and  not  the  hair,  skin,  or  visible  surface, 
or  any  part  of  the  outward  form,  colour,  or  shape  of 
Alciphron."  This  the  sceptic  readily  allows.  "And  in 
granting  this,"  the  other  rejoins,  "you  grant  that   in   a 


IDEAL    MAN    AN    IMAGE    OF    GOD.  149 

strict  sense  I  do  not  see  Alciphron,  but  only  such  visible 
signs  and  tokens  as  suggest  and  infer  the  being  of  his 
invisible  thinking  principle  or  soul.  Even  so,  in  the  self- 
same manner,  it  seems  to  me  that,  though  I  cannot  with 
the  eyes  of  flesh  behold  the  invisible  God,  yet  I  do  in  the 
strictest  sense  behold  and  perceive,  by  all  my  senses,  such 
operations  as  suggest,  indicate,  and  demonstrate  an  in- 
visible God ;  as  certainly,  and  with  the  same  evidence,  as 
other  signs,  perceived  by  sense,  do  suggest  to  me  the 
existence  of  your  soul,  spirit,  or  thinking  principle, — 
which  indeed  I  am  convinced  of  only  by  a  few  signs  or 
effects,  and  the  motions  of  one  small  organised  body ; 
whereas  I  do  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  perceive  sen- 
sible signs  which  evince  the  being  of  a  God." 

The  implied  argument  is,  that  the  universe  is  the  em-  The  agency 
bocliment  of  Universal  Mind,  presupposed  in  the  order  and  gj^^ 
relations  of  means  to  ends  which  are  found  in  its  pheno-  by  the  phe- 
mena.  In  this  we  have  the  same  sort  of  evidence  for  the  ^en^f  of 
Universal  Mind,  although  that  Mind  is  invisible,  as  we  verse. 
have  for  the  existence  of  self-conscious  human  persons 
in  the  movements  of  their  visible  organisms ;  which 
are  reasonably  taken  to  signify  their  equally  invisible 
conscious  activity.  In  like  manner  as  I  am  assured  that 
the  intending  will  of  another  human  being  is  the  ex- 
planation  of  the  audible  words  and  visible  actions  which 
I  refer  to  him,  so  I  am  bound  in  reason  to  recognise,  with 
equal  assurance,  the  existence  of  supreme  intending  Will, 
as  the  explanation  of  the  order  and  purpose  manifested  in 
the  sense-symbolism  of  a  scientifically  interpretable  world. 
The  Divine  spirit  is  embodied  in  the  great  sense-symbol- 
ism of  Nature,  as  human  spirits  are  embodied  in  the  little 
sense-symbolisms  presented  in  the  motions  of  visible  organ- 
ised bodies,  which  resemble  what  each  calls  "  his  own " 
body.  But  if  free  and  perfect  rational  agency  cannot  be 
supposed  in  universal  nature,  does  it  not  follow  that  order- 
ing and  designing  activity  of  a  man  is  as  illogically  con- 
cluded from  the  words  and  actions  of  a  human  organism  ? 
There  is  as  little  room  for  human  spiritual  agency  as  for 
divine  agency.  All  that  is  popularly  attributed  to  calcu- 
lating mind  is  explicable,  it  seems,  as  the  natural  issue 


150  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

of  the  unconscious  processes  of  natural  causation  in  the 
universal  organism.  Men  and  animals,  with  all  their 
so  -  called  works,  are  movements  in  naturally  evolved 
machines,  of  all  which  I  am  perhaps  the  solitary  spec- 
tator. The  idea  of  morally  responsible  personality,  with 
free  intending  will  as  its  implicate,  is  a  superfluous 
issue  of  the  organism  I  call  mine ;  and  a  like  superfluity 
if  an  issue  of  other  organisms  as  well  as  mine.  But 
after  all  I  have  no  proof  that  other  organisms  are  at 
all  connected  with  conscious  life,  if  all  their  words 
and  overt  actions  are  what  they  are,  through  organic 
and  inorganic  natural  causality  alone.  The  unconscious 
.  natural  succession  of  molecular  changes  in  a  human  body, 
without  the  "  interference  "  of  any  conscious  intelligence 
and  will,  would  be  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  printed 
essay  on  animal  automatism  attributed  to  Huxley.  Neither 
world-making  nor  book-making  would  presuppose  spiritual 
activity  ;  for  worlds  and  books  would  be  equally  the  issue 
of  the  orderly  sequence  of  the  visible  and  tangible 
phenomena  that  have  formed  themselves  naturally  into 
books  and  into  worlds. 
Books  But  what,   I   must  further  ask,  are  natural  automatic 

without       changes  in  organisms,  and   through  organisms  in  extra- 
authors.  ».        .        o         .    '  &         6 

organic  things,  or,  mce  versa,  when  the  changes  are  totally 

abstracted  from  perception  or  consciousness?  What  is  the 
'  Principia,'  or  what  the  '  Essay  Concerning  Human  Un- 
derstanding,' without  conscious  intelligence  and  intend- 
ing purpose  in  Newton  and  Locke,  who  are  responsible  for 
them,  and  without  conscious  activity  in  their  readers  ? 
The  visible  words  printed  on  the  pages  of  a  book  become 
significant  only  when  consciousness  makes  its  appearance. 
Whether  the  relation  between  a  person  and  the  visible 
evolution  of  his  book  is  called  a  relation  of  cause  and 
effect  or  not,  it  is  such  that  the  visible  appearances  are 
accepted  by  sane  minds  as  reasonable  guarantee  for  origi- 
nating action  of  invisible  intending  mind.  I  cannot  banish 
the  latter,  and  then  fully  think  out  my  experience  on 
the  hypothesis  of  the  exclusive  reality  of  the  former.  A 
human  intending  will  is  responsible  for  the  sensuous  signs 
of  deliberate  meaning  and  purpose  of  which  a  human  or- 


& 


IDEAL    MAN    AN    IMAGE    OF    GOD.  151 

ganism  is  the  antecedent.  The  immoral  act  for  which  the 
individual  murderer  is  held  responsible  cannot  be  shifted 
off,  first  to  his  non-moral  organism,  and  finally  to  the 
Universal  Power. 

When  the  meaning  of  the  words  "  matter  "  and  "  force  "  Natural 
is  considered,  in  the  light  of  our  spiritual  as  well  as  our  ^cha™ 
sensuous  experience,  it  appears  that  the  discovery  of  the  acteristicof 
natural  antecedents  of  a  change  is  no  final  explanation  of  JjJJjjJJJj^ 
it  even  for  man;   and  also  that  the  idea  of  originating  is  the  index 
power,  on  which  all  change  finally  depends,  is  got  from  ^cthg  to 
reflection  upon   an  irresistible   perception   of   moral  re-  originating 
sponsibility    for   deliberately   intended   acts.      "  I    ought,  Power- 
therefore  I  can"  is  like  an  index  which  points  to  agency 
of  -persons  as  man's  true  conception   of  active  causation 
or  power,  in  himself  and  in  the  universe.     Consciousness 
of  moral  ideals  implies  moral  obligation ;  but  there  can  be 
no  moral  obligation  unless  there  is  power  finally  within 
the  finite  agent  to  obey  or  to  disobey.     The  human  subject 
of  moral  obligation,  so  far  as  he  is  capable  of  obligation, 
must  be  free  from  the  mechanism  of  scientific  causation. 
The  act  must  originate  in  himself,  and  not  be  merely  a 
term  in   the  passive  succession  of  physical  antecedents 
and    consequents    which    visible    nature   presents.      The 
only  really   operative  power  that  enters  inevitably  into 
human   experience  is    moral  or   spiritual.      Is   not   per- 
fectly  rational   agency   the   highest   explanation    of    the 
universal  evolution  that   is   intelligible   to   man?      Per- 
sonally originated   volition — under  obligation  of  duty, — 
necessarily  involved  in  moral  responsibility, — is  that  in 
man  which  I  call  supernatural.     You  have  the  contrast 
between  the  mechanism  of  nature  and  the  agency  of  man 
in  the  familiar  words  of  our  great  religious  poet  :— 

"  Look  up  to  heaven  !  the  industrious  sun 
Already  half  his  race  hath  run  ; 
He  cannot  halt,  nor  go  astray, 
But  our  immortal  spirits  may? 


Originative   Cause,  in   short,  is  reached  through   Con-  Causaiitj 
science,  and  in  a  finally  ethical  conception  of  the  uni-  "' 
verse  we  have  a  deeper  hold  of  reality  than  when  it  is 


and  con- 
science. 


152 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  reli- 
gious con- 
ception 
of  the 
universe. 


treated  only  as  a  scientifically  in terpre table  system  of 
sense  sequences.  Man  at  his  highest — acting  freely  under 
moral  obligation,  with  the  implied  intellectual  and  moral 
postulates — is  surely  a  more  fitting  key  for  his  ultimate 
interpretation  of  things  than  man  only  as  an  animal  organ- 
ism, abstracted  from  the  experience  which  can  be  dis- 
claimed only  by  disclaiming  human  responsibility.  The 
Macrocosm  in  analogy  with  the  microcosm — the  Universal 
Power  in  analogy  with  what  is  highest  in  man — the  homo 
mensura,  when  homo  means  man  moral  and  spiritual  as 
well  as  merely  sensuous — the  divina  mensura  humanised 
— in  this  we  seem  to  have  the  fittest  analogy  within  reach 
for  the  Universal  Power  in  which  we  are  having  our  being. 
The  finally  ethical  conception  of  the  universe  involves 
the  idea  of  obligation,  with  implied  power  in  agents  to 
originate  what  oimht  not  to  exist.  Keligion  includes 
trust  in  the  Universal  Power ;  and  for  those  with  whom 
reverential  cosmic  faith  in  natural  order  is  the  highest 
principle  to  which  they  have  risen,  this  cosmic  faith  is  in 
a  manner  their  religion.  But  when  faith  goes  no  further 
than  the  cosmic  postulate ;  when  it  is  emptied  of  the  in- 
gredients contributed  by  man's  experience  of  himself  as 
a  supernatural  being, — the  merely  cosmic  faith  contains 
no  guarantee  that  intelligence  may  not  be  in  the  end  put 
to  confusion — after  external  nature  and  human  nature  are 
emptied  of  Omnipotent  Goodness.  What  now  seems 
cosmic  order  may  then  in  the  end  be  physical  and  moral 
anarchy,  and  life  intrusted  to  a  faith  so  thin  and  shallow 
is  not  worth  living.  Pessimist  despair,  instead  of  religious 
hope,  is  the  worship  appropriate  to  the  god  of  wholly 
physical  faith.  So  that  although  this  cosmic  faith  in 
a  non-moral  universe  may  be  called  religion,  it  is  not 
religion  in  the  moral  meaning  of  the  word.  It  wants  a 
final  trust  that  is  absolute,  and  adapted  to  a  moral  being. 
If  so,  the  morally  religious  conception  of  the  universe  is 
more  deeply  philosophical  than  the  physically  scientific. 
If  scientific  faith  is  baseless  confidence  that  the  world  will 
not  in  the  end  put  to  intellectual  confusion  those  who  rely 
on  the  universality  of  its  natural  order,  religious  faith  not 
only  gives  its  basis  to  this  physical  faith,  but  is  the  absolute 


IDEAL    MAN    AN    IMAGE    OF    GOD.  153 

assurance  that  the  Supreme  Power  will  not  put  to  per- 
manent moral  confusion  those  who  strive  to  realise  the 
true  ideal  of  man,  assured  that  the  universe  is  eternally 
working  for  good  to  those  who  thus  live.  God  represented 
in  the  Ideal  Man  is,  for  man,  the  revelation  of  perfect 
goodness  on  the  throne  of  the  universe. 


154 


LECTUEE    III. 


WHAT   IS    GOD? 


Simonides. 


Is  the 

religions 
conception 
of  the  uni- 
verse rea- 
sonable ? 


Untheistic 
interpreta- 
tions of  the 


I  alluded  formerly  to  the  "  prudent  reserve  of  Simonides," 
who,  according  to  the  story,  being  asked  by  Hiero,  What 
God  teas  ?  desired  a  day  to  think  out  the  question,  and 
then  two  days  more,  after  that  continually  enlarging  the 
time  needed  for  the  answer,  but  without  ever  being  able 
either  to  form  a  picture  of  God,  or  an  adequate  definition 
of  God.     Are  we  better  prepared  than  Simonides  ? 

I  have  not  engaged  with  the  more  articulate  ques- 
tions of  religion.  I  am  concerned  with  the  previous 
question  of  the  reasonableness  of  religious  trust  in  the 
Universal  Power.  I  have  been  asking  how  the  universe 
should  be  finally  regarded  by  man  ?  Must  it  be  finally 
under  conceptions  of  mathematical  quantity,  or  of  physical 
causation  only,  as  with  Spinoza  and  Hume.  Does  not 
a  larger  conception  of  what  reason  involves  require  that 
it  should  be  regarded  practically  in  analogy  with  man  as 
a  moral  agent,  the  centre  of  the  little  universe  of  his  own 
personal  life  ?  Is  the  modern  physical  conception  of  con- 
tinuous evolution  the  highest  that  is  attainable  ?  Is  not 
this  conception  inadequate  when  measured  by  man  as  a 
spiritual  being  ?  Is  the  religious  conception  of  the  universe 
the  really  reasonable  one,  under  indispensable  moral  trust 
in  the  Universal  Power  at  the  root  of  reason  in  man  ? 

I  have  tried  to  present,  in  a  sympathetic  temper,  the 
chief  ways  in  which  the  universe  has  been  looked  at 
untheistically.  The  constructive  conceptions  of  Universal 
Materialism,  Panegoism,  and  Pantheism,  were  tried  pro- 


WHAT    IS    GOD?  155 

visionally  in  succession ;  and  I  asked  a  candid  considera- 
tion for  what  seemed  unsatisfying  in  each  ;  while  not 
overlooking  the  partial  truth,  which  gives  to  each  what 
strength  it  has.  If  you  would  convince  another  who 
really  loves  truth,  of  defect  in  conception,  you  must  try 
to  see  the  side  at  which  things  are  looked  at  by  him  ; 
for  on  that  side  his  view  of  them  is  probably  true :  and 
by  seeing  a  truth,  common  to  him  and  to  you,  he  may 
more  readily  recognise  what  is  wanting  in  his  own  con- 
ception. We  next  tried  provisionally  the  agnostic  way 
of  looking  at  things,  to  which  Monist  theories  seem  to 
lead  in  the  end.  Here  we  found  all  constructive  concep- 
tions of  the  universe  held  in  suspense,  and  with  them, 
when  agnosticism  is  bold  enough,  faith  in  experience, 
whether  sensuous  or  spiritual,  suspended ;  natural  science, 
as  well  as  religion,  subsiding  in  the  total  darkness  of 
universal  nescience. 

But  the  state  in  which  one  doubts  about  everything  is  The  corre- 
a  state  in  which  man  cannot  live.     Even  our  animal  life  jj!J?cj 
requires  faith  in  nature.      We  cannot  live  without  eat-  and  reli-' 
ing  and  drinking ;  and  we  clo  not  eat  or  drink  without  fj°?st-or 
faith  in  nutriment,  or  in  the  agreeable  sensations,  which  faith. 
we  believe  visible  food  to  signify,  when  it  is  only  seen, 
and  before  it  is  tasted.     We  are  daily  living  in  the  move- 
ment or  evolution  which  constitutes  our  experience.    How 
far  can  we  go  in  interpreting  the  meaning  of  this  ex- 
perience ?     Ought  we  to  put  a  fully  religious  meaning  at 
last  upon  the  Whole  ;  or  must  we  be  contented  to  interpret 
it  under  the  attenuated  religious  presupposition  (if  it  can 
be  called  religious)  of  a  wholly  physical  or  non-moral 
order,  with  its  physical  or  non-moral  god  ?     Does  God — 
the  Final  Principle — the  Universal  Power — dissolve  into 
ultimately  inexplicable  and  purposeless  natural  order ;  or 
does  God  mean  ever-active  moral  reason  and  purpose,  at 
the  root  of  a  divinely  maintained  physical  order,  in  which 
the  omnipresent  power  is  perfect  goodness  personified  ? 
Is  the  universe  to  be  finally  interpreted  in  and  through 
what  is  found  in  man  at  his  highest  or  best — man  with 
his  ineradicable  conviction  of  moral   responsibility,   and 
his  religious  faith  that  even  the  natural  universe  must 


156  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

be  a  manifestation  of  Power  he  must  think  of  as  perfect 
reason  and  goodness  ?  Is  the  progressive  evolution  in 
space  and  time  finally  interpretable  only  in  the  light  of 
a  faith  which  can  rest  absolutely  on  nothing  short  of 
Infinite  Goodness  ?  Or  must  it  finally  be  interpreted  in 
the  darkness  of  an  inexplicable,  perhaps  illusory,  natural 
order,  without  divine  centre, — a  sham  cosmos  in  which 
there  can  be  no  final  trust  or  perfect  peace  ?  At  the 
least,  is  there  anything  that  absolutely  forbids  man  to 
interpret  the  universe  finally  as  the  revelation  of  Power 
that,  so  far  as  he  has  to  do  with  what  is  real,  is  in  analogy 
with  what  is  highest  and  best  in  himself ; — so  that  Ideal 
Man  may  be  taken  as  virtually  the  "  image "  of  the 
Universal  Power,  with  which  he  is  connected  in  his  whole 
living  experience  ? 
a  way  It  is  in  this  way  of  looking  at  the  universe  that  I  have 

open  for  a  been  approaching  a  human  answer  to  Hiero's  question, 
answer  The  outcome  seems  already  to  suggest  that  the  question 
to  Hiero's  may  De  answered  as  it  concerns  man,  while,  by  man,  it 
remains  infinitely  unanswerable.  Is  not  the  deepest  and 
truest  thought  man  can  have,  that  in  which  the  universe 
is  conceived  as  the  manifestation  of  perfectly  good  Power, 
in  moral  relation  to  persons  who  are  undergoing  spirit- 
ual education  individually  in  a  finally  divine  universe — 
education  in  an  individualising  organism — consisting  in 
struggles  to  rule  by  obeying  nature  with  which  they  are 
continually  in  contact  and  collision  ;  which,  in  the  light 
of  their  inner  consciousness,  is  seen  to  be  a  revelation  of 
perfect  goodness ;  in  all  which  the  material  world  be- 
comes the  symbol  of  Mind  and  the  servant  of  man.  It 
follows  that  man  in  one  sense  may  know  God,  and  yet 
that  God  cannot  be  known  infinitely  by  man.  It  is  blended 
knowledge  and  ignorance,  real  knowledge,  in  part,  of  that 
which  passes  human  knowledge.  Nature,  or  the  symbolic 
world ;  ego,  or  our  supernatural  personality ;  and  God,  in 
whom  Nature  and  Man  are  reconciled — all  are  in  part, 
or  for  human  purposes,  knowable :  they  can  be  known  as 
far  as  human  life  needs  the  knowledge. 

Physical   science  is  reached  in  the  faith-venture,  that 
the  persistent  order  and  purpose  in  nature  will  not  suffer 


WHAT    IS    GOD  %  157 

the  physical  inquirer  to  be  finally  put   to   confusion  in  Thereli- 

chaos.      Keligion,  too,  is  a  leap  in   the  dark,  yet  with  ?10"s  1?&V, 

&    .         ,  r  '„  in  the  dark. 

absolute  trust  m  the  constant  agency  or  perfect  moral 

reason,   as   at  the  root  not  only  of  physical  order,  but 

as  the  highest  conception  man  can  have  of  the  Universal 

Power.      So   the    moral   or   religious    faith   justifies    the 

physical  faith  at  the  root  of  science,  which  it  deepens 

and   enlarges.     The   Macrocosm,   so   regarded,   is   surely 

more  in  harmony  with  the  homo  mensura  principle  in  its 

human  integrity,  than  when  looked  at  agnostically — as  a 

finally   unintelligible   and   wholly   incalculable   aggregate 

of  sense  phenomena,  which  in  the  end  may   put  us  to 

confusion,  intellectually  and   morally.      For    the    future 

history  of  an  unreligiously  conceived  universe,  deprived 

of   the    guarantee  implied  in  absolute  moral  trust,  may 

in  the  end  contradict  the  postulates  without  which  even 

physical  science  must  dissolve  in  nescience,  deprived  of 

the  witness  of  humanity  to  the  fact,  that  nature  and  man 

are  having  their  natural  and  moral  being  in   God.      Is 

not  theistic  trust  what  inspires  confidence  even  in  that 

narrower   intercourse   with   what   is   real,   in   which   the 

physical  interpreter  hears  the  divine  voice  expressed,  in 

terms   of  physical  law,  in  the   beneficent  discoveries  of 

natural  science  ? 

I  include  the  revelation  of  God  which  one  finds  in  the  No  alleged 

moral  and  religious    experience  of   mankind — including  JjjJJJJ'J 

the  signal  records  of  it  in  Hebrew  and  Christian  literature  God  in  and 

— as  part  of  the  material  of  our  expanded  Natural  The-  through 

i  mi  t     t  t  •  i  •       i      T>-i  i     man  to  be 

ology.     The  remarkable  experience,  preserved  in  the  Bible  excluded 

of  Christianity,  and  in  the  catholic  traditions  of  Christen-  from  exam- 
dom — whatever  more  it  may  be — is  at  least  a  part  of  the 
actual  history  of  mankind.  It  presents  religious  con- 
ceptions of  man  and  the  universe  to  which  men  who 
once  lived  on  this  planet  have  given  expression.  If  a 
bar  is  to  exclude  the  student  of  philosophical  theology 
from  this  memorable  portion  of  recorded  religious  experi- 
ence ;  and  if  he  must  be  confined  to  phenomena  of  ex- 
ternal nature,  in  the  way  an  astronomer  or  a  chemist 
confines  himself,  so  that  his  theology  must  be  in  the 
narrow  sense   "  natural "  and  "  scientific,"  he  is  deprived 


158  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

of  the  most  significant  facts  in  the  history  of  the  devel- 
opment of  the  religious  conception.  As  well  say  that 
the  astronomer  must  form  astronomical  science  with- 
out reference  to  the  signal  revelations  of  astronomical 
law  that  are  presented  in  the  movements  of  our  solar 
system,  as  that  the  philosophical  theologian  must  deal 
with  the  religious  settlement  of  the  universal  problem 
of  human  life  without  reference  to  the  experience  of 
persons  powerfully  inspired  by  the  religious  idea.  That 
God  seemed  to  be  experienced  by  men  in  the  way  prophets 
and  apostles  say  that  they  experienced  God,  is  a  fact  in 
history. 

A  humanly  But  is  Universal  Power  conceived  after  the  analogy 
knowabie  0f  foe  Ideal  Man  an  adequate  conception  of  God  even 
for  finite  intelligence  ?  A  God  who  can  be  fully  com- 
prehended by  man  cannot  be  Infinite.  But  is  it  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  the  idea  of  God  as  Perfect  Man  is  a 
philosophical  solution  of  the  final  problem ;  only  because 
it  corresponds  to  what  is  highest  in  the  experience  of  an 
ephemeral  race  of  living  beings,  on  one  of  the  lesser 
planets  of  a  solar  system  ?  To  take  this  reduced  final 
conception  of  the  Universal  Power  looks  like  arrogant 
assumption,  which  makes  an  insignificant  being  the  mea- 
sure of  the  Infinite  Eeality. 
Absolute  It  would  be  so  if   the  human  finality  were   taken    as 

Sthe6^6  adequate  to  the  reality.  But  the  human  final  conception  is 
human  not  offered  as  the  perfect  conception  of  God,  taken  from  the 
standpoint.  divine  centre — only  as  the  conception  of  God  necessarily 
taken  at  the  human  position  away  from  the  centre.  It  may 
be  the  true  conception,  at  man's  intermediate  position, 
neither  of  nescience  nor  omniscience,  at  which  he  may 
nevertheless  realise  what  is  even  eternally  true  for  that 
position; — absolutely  real  knowledge  of  an  intelligence 
that  cannot  become  omniscient,  or  know  reality  independ- 
ently of  conditions  of  time  and  change.  It  may  be  that 
which,  when  held  reasonably  by  man,  is  sufficient  to 
put  him  in  what  one  may  call  relatively  absolute  rational 
harmony  with  the  universe ;  so  that  faith  in  it  is  indis- 
pensable in  his  endeavour  to  live  according  to  the  deepest 


WHAT    IS    GOD  ?  15  9 

and  truest  human  relation  to  God.  That  a  gradually  de- 
veloping religious  conception  is  the  chief  factor  of  human 
progress,  may  be  the  supreme  example  of  adaptation 
found  in  the  constitution  of  things,  and  so  far  a  justifica- 
tion of  our  faith-venture.  The  religious  experience  of  man 
in  the  religions  of  the  world,  combined  with  the  necessary 
inadequacy  of  all  human  conceptions  of  things  at  the  last, 
teach  the  lesson  that  God  is  infinitely  incognisable,  while 
practically  revealed. 

Does  some  one  ask,  "What  kind  of  Spirit  or  Mind  con-  is  God 
stitutes  God  ?     Are  we  to  imagine  a  divine  consciousness,  suPercou- 

&         .  scions ; 

in  the  form  of  a  succession  of  changing  states  and  acts,  like 
those  of  the  inner  life  in  man ;  or,  instead  of  this,  one 
unchanging  intuition  of  all  that  is,  has  been,  and  is  yet  to 
be  ?  It  has  been  suggested  that  God  must  be  super- 
conscious.  But  superconsciousness  is  something  that,  for 
us,  while  nominally  above,  is  really  below,  conscious  in- 
tellect and  will.  The  very  attempt  to  conceive  a  super- 
conscious  "  Mind "  lands  the  human  mind  in  contradic- 
tion. We  are  told  that  there  may  be  in  the  infinite 
universe  something  grander  and  greater  than  conscious- 
ness ;  that  there  may  be  species  of  existence,  modes  of 
being,  unnameable  by  us,  which  are  infinitely  superior 
to  consciousness,  more  to  be  desired  than  consciousness; 
and  that  this  existence  may  even  be  open  to  human 
beings  in  a  future  state.  There  may  be  behind  the  phe- 
nomenal curtain  something  grander  than  consciousness, 
we  are  told.  Philosophers,  men  of  science,  mystics,  poets, 
prophets,  and  revealers  are  all  impotent  to  say  what  this 
may  be,  though  they  have  been  for  ever  putting  their  souls 
on  the  stretch  to  describe  this  great  and  unexplored  con- 
tinent, neither  consciousness  nor  annihilation.  Now 
all  this  seems  to  imply  that  only  superconscious  God 
would  be  God  in  any  degree  of  reality;  not  God  as  ap- 
proached in  thought  in  and  through  the  highest  ideal  of 
man.  But  the  superconscious  God  leaves  us  with  a  lower 
idea  than  when  we  think  of  God  as  Perfect  Man,  or  human- 
ised Universal  Reason — known  yet  unknown — known  for 
the  ends  of  our  moral  and  religious  life, — unknown,  because 
we  are  incapable  of  perfect  comprehension — the  one  signal 


160  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

example  of  how  human  knowledge  may  be  real  while  the 
reality  that  is  known  surpasses  human  understanding. 
Solvitw  This  incompleteness  arrests  the   Idealism  which,  dis- 

ambulando.  satisfied  with  knowledge  that  is  only  in  part,  professes 
to  interpret  all  from  the  divine  centre,  in  what  is  there- 
fore bound  to  be  Omniscience.  Do  we  find  in  it  more  than 
analysis  and  synthesis  of  abstract  necessities  of  reason, 
instead  of  the  expected  solution  of  all  the  mysteries  of 
human  experience  conditioned  in  time.  To  the  absolute 
idealist  who  complains  of  inadequacy  in  a  religious 
conception  of  the  universe  that  is  determined  on  the 
homo  mensura  principle,  or  by  what  is  divine  in  man,  one 
can  only  say  that  the  refutation  is  in  his  own  hands. 
Solvitur  ambulando.  Let  him  produce  in  a  book  the 
Omniscience  which  the  humbler  philosophy  is  blamed 
for  not  producing.  Let  him  rid  life  of  all  its  mysteries 
— not  by  restating  them  in  new  language  and  articulate 
form,  but  by  solving  them  in  an  all-comprehensive  phil- 
osophical imagination — thus  superseding  moral  faith  by 
actually  realising  perfect  insight  of  the  infinite  reality. 
Let  him  actually  show  the  universe  in  endless  dura- 
tion, as  seen  at  the  divine  centre.  This  would  super- 
sede criticism  of  the  intermediate  position  with  which  I 
am  satisfied. 
Theuiti-  The  mystery  of   ultimately  incognisable  yet  revealed 

mate  in-      Deity  is  the  nourishment  of  religious  adoration,  which  in- 

compre-  J .      .      „     ..        .  ,  .    .      °  .  ,    ,  ■>-, 

hensibiiity   stmctively  feels  that  our  highest  experience  must  be  all 
b^an       inadequate  to  realise  Infinite  Eeality.     This  is  the  voice 
sustains       of  religion  when  religion  is  sufficiently  awakened  in  con- 
reverence,    sciousness.     The  visible  ritual  of  Catholicism,  and  not  less 
the  invisible  mental  images  of  God  in  popular  Protestant- 
ism, when  regarded  as  symbols  adequate  to  God,  and  not 
merely  as  helps  to  religious  devotion  in  man,  are  rejected 
by  the  true  worshipper.     His  language  is : — 

"  Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any  graven  image,  or 
any  likeness  of  any  thing  that  is  in  heaven  above,  or  that 
is  in  the  earth  beneath,  or  that  is  in  the  water  under  the 
earth  :  thou  shalt  not  bow  down  thyself  to  them. 

"  Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God  ?  canst  thou  find 
out  the  Almighty  unto  perfection  ? " 


WHAT    IS    GOD  ?  161 

"  0  Lord,  how  great  are  thy  works  !  and  thy  thoughts 
are  very  deep.  .  .  .  Great  is  our  Lord :  His  understanding 
is  infinite." 

"  God  hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart,  so  that  no  man 
can  find  out  the  work  that  God  maketh  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end.  Then  I  beheld  all  the  work  of  God,  that 
a  man  cannot  find  out  the  work  that  is  done  under  the 
sun :  because  though  a  man  labour  to  seek  it  out,  yet  he 
shall  not  find  it ;  yea  farther,  though  a  wise  man  think  to 
know  it,  yet  shall  he  not  be  able  to  find  it." 

"  To  whom  then  will  ye  liken  God  ?  or  what  likeness 
will  ye  compare  unto  Him  ?  There  is  no  searching  of  His 
understanding.  As  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth, 
so  are  my  ways  higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts 
than  your  thoughts." 

"  0  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and 
knowledge  of  God!  how  unsearchable  are  His  judgments, 
and  His  ways  past  finding  out." 

"  I  know  in  part.  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these 
three,  and  the  greatest  of  these  is  love." 

Acknowledgment  of  the  incomprehensibility  of  God,  Christian 
when  men  try  in  vain  to  conceive  Deity  in  infinity,  and 
not  merely  in  and  through  what  is  highest  in  Man,  is  an 
agnosticism  that  is  implied  in  the  language  of  the  great 
Christian  thinkers.  It  is  reiterated  in  the  teaching  of 
Origen  and  Augustine.  Chrysostom  speaks  of  God  as 
transcending  all  apprehension  of  human  knowledge ;  the 
reality  as  seen  from  its  divine  centre  being  incom- 
prehensible to  the  highest  finite  intelligence.  With 
Gregory  of  Nazianzen  God  is,  in  a  unique  sense,  un- 
knowable. The  pseudo-Dionysius  supposes  that  God  is 
infinitely  above  knowledge,  superconscious,  above  sub- 
stance, above  mind  or  spirit,  above  life.  In  the  hyper- 
bolical language  of  some  Christian  thinkers,  God  in  His 
infinity  is  more  than  unknown.  He  is  not  unknown 
merely  in  the  way  finite  things  outside  the  experience 
of  an  individual  are  to  him  unknown  :  He  is  transcend- 
ently  above  apprehension  :  without  substance,  and  without 
realisable  existence. 

Theology    is   concerned    with    what  is    implied   in   all 

L 


agnosti- 
cism. 


162  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

Religious  human  experience,  yet  in  its  infinity  incomprehensible. 
phiios-  n  js  concerned  with  ideas  of  infinity  which  are  pre- 
theend,1  supposed  in  all  natural  or  physical,  and  more  deeply  in 
must  take  an  m0ral  or  spiritual,  experience.  Yet  its  characteristic 
reverential  ideas  cannot  be  completely  rounded  in  speculative  im- 
faith.  agination,  because,  however  much  enlarged,  they  must  in 

us  at  last  fall  short — fragments  only  of  the  infinite  Reality, 
— if  without  a  contradiction  one  may  speak  of  a  "  frag- 
ment "  of  infinity,  or  express  in  terms  of  quantity  what 
transcends  quantity. 

"  Our  little  systems  have  their  day  ; 

They  have  their  day,  and  cease  to  be  : 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou,  0  Lord,  art  more  than  they. 

We  have  but  faith  :  we  cannot  know, 
For  knowledge  is  of  things  we  see  ; 
And  yet  we  trust  it  comes  from  Thee, 

A  beam  in  darkness  :  let  it  grow." 

Man's  This  unique  character  of  man's  knowledge  of  God,  or 

finite  need   tne    gnaj    meaning    of    the   universe  —  that   incomplete 

plies  by       knowledge  in  which  human  understanding  culminates  in 

supposition  moral  faith — may  have  been  in  Bacon's  view  when  he 

sumption,"  warns  us  that  "  perfection  or  completeness  in  divinity  is 

to  be  ac-      110t  to  be  sought.     For  he  that  will  reduce  a  knowledge 

faSh.  "      mto  an  art  [°r  science]  will  make  it  round  and  uniform  ; 

but  in  divinity  many  things  must  be  left  abrupt.     As  the 

apostle  saith,  '  we  know  in  part ' ;  and  to  have  the  form 

of  a  total,  as  science  requires,  where  there  is  but  matter 

for  a  part,  cannot  be  without  supplies  by  supposition  and 

presumption."       It   is    this    constant    need,    in    physical 

science  as  well  as  in  our  religious  conceptions,  for  what 

Bacon  calls  "  supplies  by  supposition  and  presumption," 

that  makes   human  experience   of   real  existence  at  last 

moral  faith,  or  optimist  trust,  instead  of  infinite  insight. 

Reason  is  to  be  distinguished  from  reasoning,  with  which 

it  is  often  confounded.    All  fruitful  reasoning  presupposes 

reason,   i.e.,  final   rational  trust  in   the   reasonable ;    and 

nothing  can  be  reasonably   accepted   that  is  inconsistent 

with  the  faith  that  we  are  living  in  a  universe  in  which 

Active  Moral    Reason   is   supreme.      Omniscience  super- 


WHAT    IS    GOD?  163 

secies  those  "  supplies  by  supposition  and  presumption " 
which  Bacon  finds  indispensable  for  limited  intelligence 
in  man.  Omniscience  dispenses  with  hypothesis  and 
argument.  Intuitive  thought  is  our  idea  of  infinite  In- 
telligence. Human  knowledge,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
advanced  through  the  intervention  of  premisses,  supposed 
to  be  already  known — by  applied  reasoning  in  discursive 
thought.  Moral  trust  authenticates  our  inferential  in- 
terpretations of  what  is  experienced  and  sufficiently  con- 
nects us  with  the  Infinite. 

Indeed,  mere  argument  seems  to   be  a  mark  of    fini-  Reasoning 
tnde  in  the  intelligence  that  is  obliged  to  have  recourse  di^1"] 
to  it.     To  minds  able  to  comprehend  all  things  in  all  their  from  Final 
relations   in    one    intellectual    grasp,  inferential   thought  Reason- 
would  be  a  superfluity.     We  have  a  faint  illustration  of 
this   even  in   human  experience.     Inventive  genius    dis- 
cerns in  a  flash  of   intellectual  insight  truth  to   which 
a  less  comprehensive  intellect  needs  to  be  conducted,  by 
slow  processes  of  syllogism  and  calculated  comparison  of 
facts.     The  dogmatist  in  controversy,  who  never  dreams 
that  his  favourite  premisses  need  justification  or  admit  of 
criticism,  is  an  example  of    the  mere  arguer:   argument 
is   worthy  of  respect  only  when  it  is  used  as  a   human 
instrument  for  unfolding  truth.     It  makes  explicit  what 
is  implied  in  premisses  that  may  be  false ;  and  the  highest 
minds  often  see  at  once  what  others  have  to  be  led  to 
by  steps  of  reasoning.     We  are  told  of  a  great  mathemati- 
cian that  he  could  recognise  intuitively  as  axioms  truths 
which  Euclid  slowly  evolves  as  conclusions,  through  long 
trains  of  demonstration. 

Again.     The  living  mind  that  man  employs  is  one  in  Finite  in- 
which  conscious  states  or  acts  succeed  one  another  in  a  teliigence 
continuous   series ;    for    life    as   we   have  it  is  constant  cession  of 
change.      Our    daily   consciousness    is    a    procession    of  conscious 
blended  thought,  feeling,  and  volition.     Can  we  suppose  .states!1' 
that  anything  like  this  is  true  of  God  ?     Is  a  succession 
of  ever-changing  conscious  acts  going  on  continuously  in 
the   Universal  Power,   contemporaneously  with  our  own 
embodied  conscious    acts,   so  that  the    divine    succession 
of  changing-  conscious   states   is   without   besinnins   and 


164  PHILOSOPHY   OF   THEISM^ 

without  end  ?  Surely  this  must  be  an  inadequate  way  of 
thinking  about  what  we  in  our  ignorance  call  "  mind  "  in 
God  ?  The  relation  of  time  to  eternity,  in  whatever  way 
it  is  approached,  is  the  mystery  of  mysteries.  A  conscious 
life  that  lasts  for  millions  of  years  is  supposable,  though 
it  transcends  distinct  human  imagination :  personal  life 
that  has  no  beginning  and  no  end,  passes  human  tender- 
standing. 

Thereflec-       Thus  far  we  find  ourselves  only  on  the  shore  of  the 
tive  circle    infinite   ocean    that   contains   the    mysteries  in   which  a 
havetrT     human   conception  of    God,  and  of  Man  and  Nature  in 
versed.        their  final  relation  to  God,  is  at  last  paralysed.     We  are 
travelling  by  the  human  road,  which  is  as  it  were  at  the 
side  :  we  cannot  sound  the  divine  depth  at  the  centre.     In 
the  end  we  may  even  return  to  the  place  from  which  we 
started  in  "  the  simple  creed  of  childhood,"  with  its  three 
primary  data ;  but  on  our  return  we  should  see  all  the 
three  in  a  brighter  light.     The  path  which  at  first  view 
seems  to  lead  to  scepticism,  pursued  to  the  end  brings 
men   back   to    common -sense   idealised.     "Atheism,"  as 
Bacon  says,  "is  rather  in   the  lip  than  in  the  heart  of 
man,"  so  that  "  depth  in  philosophy  bringeth  men's  minds 
about  to  religion,"  if  a  little  "  inclineth  them  to  atheism." 
As  to  this,  one  might  say,  with  regard  to  the  divine  mean- 
ing of  human  life,  what  Philonous  in  the  Dialogue   says 
about  his  question,  concerning  the  meaning  of  the  world  of 
Matter:   "I    do   not   pretend    to  be  a  setter   up   of  new 
notions.     My  endeavours  tend  only  to  unite  and  place  in 
a  clearer  light  truth  which  was  before  shared  between 
the  vulgar  and  philosophers.    You  see  the  water  of  yonder 
fountain,  how  it  is  forced  upwards  in  a  round  column  and 
a  certain  height,  at  which  it  breaks  and  falls  back  into  the 
basin  out  of  which  it  arose — its  ascent  as  well  as  descent 
proceeding  on  the  same  uniform  law  or  principle  of  gra- 
vitation.    Just  so,  the  principles  which,  at  first  view,  lead 
to  scepticism,  pursued  to  a  certain  point,  bring  men  back 
to  common-sense." 
Philosophy      Are  we  not  finding  that  this  is  so,  in  our  journey  through 
consum-      speculative  systems  and  sceptical  speculation  towards  the 


WHAT    IS    GOD  ?  165 

underlying  faith  which  sustains  human  experience  ?  I  mated  in 
am  trying  to  approach  with  faithfulness  to  evidence  the  Theol°gy- 
deepest  and  truest  interpretation  of  human  experience.  A 
religious  interpretation  of  the  universe  is  with  the  chief 
thinkers  from  Plato  to  Hegel  its  most  real  interpretation. 
When  nature  is  seen  to  be  God  acting,  and  the  evolving 
universe  is  recognised  as  the  revelation  of  God,  collision 
between  advancing  science  and  religious  faith  is  not 
possible.     So  with  the  poet  we  can  at  the  end — 

"  Raise 
The  song  of  thanks  and  praise 
.     .     .     For  those  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings ; 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realised. 

For  there  are  found  in  man — 

"  High  instincts,  before  which  our  mortal  nature 
Did  tremble  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised  ! " 

And  latent  in  man's  spirit  are — 

"  Those  first  affections, 
Those  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing  : 

Uphold  us — cherish — and  have  the  power  to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  Eternal  Silence  :  truths  that  wake, 
To  perish  never. 
Hence  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 
Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither  ; 
Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither — 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore." 

I  proceed  to  show  how  latent  faith  and  hope  in  omni- 
present, omniscient,  and  omnipotent  Goodness  is  tacitly 
the  indispensable  constituent  of  a  reasonable  experience, 
the  constant  spring  of  religious  emotion,  and  the  origin 
of  "  peace  which  passeth  understanding." 


ophy. 


LECTUEE   IV. 


PERFECT   GOODNESS   PERSONIFIED. 


Theistie  Thus  far  I  have  tried  to  awaken  reflection  to  the  human 
ouhvS"  issues  involved  in  "  Natural  Theology,  in  the  widest  sense 
of  the  term."  For,  the  meaning,  reality,  and  worth  of 
religion,  in  any  of  its  many  historical  forms,  merges,  as  an 
intellectual  inquiry,  in  the  central  question  of  philosophy, 
about  the  ethical  value  and  mutual  relations  of  the  ego, 
the  outward  world,  and  the  Universal  Power.  The  demand 
for  Natural  Theology,  not  in  the  narrow  but  in  the  wide 
sense  of  "  natural,"  is  virtually  a  demand  for  the  rationale 
of  trust  and  hope  in  the  Power  we  all  have  practically 
to  do  with,  even  in  our  daily  experience  through  the  five 
senses,  and  above  all  in  our  experience  of  moral  agency. 
Natural  Theology  is  not  merely  a  psychology  of  religion, 
or  a  comparative  science  of  different  forms  of  essential 
religion,  as  they  appear  in  the  historical  evolution.  It 
embraces  the  rationale  of  the  theistie  faith  of  which  re- 
ligious life,  with  its  doctrines  and  institutions,  is  the  ex- 
pression. This  is  Theistie  Philosophy,  with  its  eternal 
problems.  In  this  I  pretend  to  offer  only  aids  to  reflection 
for  those  who  are  trying,  as  so  many  now  are,  to  think 
out  for  themselves  the  question  of  whether  or  not  they 
are  living  and  moving  and  having  their  being  in  an 
essentially  divine  universe, — in  its  final  principle  morally 
trustworthy — a  revelation  of  God,  more  or  less  fruitfully 
interpreted  by  man. 

The  whole  history  of  man  may  be  read  as  the  history 


PERFECT    GOODNESS    PERSONIFIED.  167 


of  a  struggle  between  final  distrust  and  final  trust.     The  Either 
one  when  "intrepidly  pursued  leads  to  sceptical  alienation  ^nation 
from  a  wholly  uninterpretable  universe ;  and  life  is  then  from  a 
contemplated,  according   to  the  individual  temperament,  J^JjJJ*. 
with   Epicurean   indifference   or  with   pessimist  despair,  pretabie 
The  other  inclination  is  towards  reconciliation  with  the  ™nJ0e™e' 
universe,  in  hopeful  moral  faith ;  even  if  it  must  be  faith  ciiiation 
combined   with    incomplete    scientific    understanding    oi  JJjjSi^h 
Infinity,  and  with  inability  to  translate  itself  into  physic-  reasonable 
ally  scientific  imagination.     Necessities  of  human  nature  ™°j^faith 
hinder  both  the  tendency  to  alienation  and  the  tendency  universal 
to  perfect  intellectual  reconciliation   from  being  carried. Power, 
to  the  extremes  of  speechless  and  motionless  Nescience, 
on  the  one  hand,  or  Omniscience,  on   the  other.      Men 
could  not  live  even   a   life   of  sense  if  they  treated  the 
universe  as  wholly  uninterpretable;  and  the  perfect  com- 
prehension, which  would  supersede  the  inevitable  incom- 
pleteness of  faith,  involves  the  deification  of  man. 

The  idea  of  the  infinite  in  quantity  that  is  irresistibly  Omnipres- 
forced  upon  us  when  we  try  to  understand  perfectly  the  ^ifethe 
space   through  which  our  bodies   move,  the   duration  in  tends  to  a 
which  our  lives  are  spent,  and  the  causation  which  deter-  ^pJ^1 
mines  ceaseless  change,  is   what  introduces   mystery  at  structive 
last  into  human  experience.      This  idea  of   the  infinite  jjjjg^to 
may   nourish  either  sceptical  despair   or  religious  faith,  the  way 
Looked  at  in  one  way,  it  alienates  man  from  the  universe  jj.w^h 
in  which  he  finds  himself :  it  shakes  his  trust  in  it,  as  g^ed! 
in  something   that  cannot  be  grasped,  on  account  of  its 
infinite  size,  as  well  as  its  physical  unbeginningness  and 
unendingness.     Also  the  infinite  causal  regress  and  pro- 
gress seems  to  evade  an  answer,  when  one  asks  for  its 
moral  character  and  purpose.      This  final  incomprehen- 
sibility  produces    a    perplexed    assumption    that   life   is 
meaningless,   and    the    universe   wholly    uninterpretable, 
therefore  outside  beneficial  intercourse;  because  we  are 
for  ever   battled   by   the   mysteries   involved   in   its   im- 
mensity, eternity,  and  endless  causation.     Yet  the  same 
negative  idea  of  infinity,  or  mysterious  incompletability, 
under  which  all  seems  to  lose  itself  at  last  in  a  causal 


168  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

mystery,  becomes  the  very  minister  of  moral  or  theistic 
faith,  when  what  is  causal  mystery  for  the  scientific  un- 
derstanding is  handled  in  reverential  humility :  it  is  found 
to  open  room  for,  and  even  demand,  moral  trust  in  the 
Power  that  is  at  the  root  of  all.  For  the  conviction 
that  man  cannot  become  omniscient  is  then  apt  to  make 
us  see  the  reasonableness  of  an  understanding  of  things 
that  is  at  last  determined  by  the  substitute  for  omniscience 
found  in  our  spiritual  constitution.  The  universe  is  seen 
to  be  too  mysterious  for  us  to  interpret  even  in  part 
and  physically,  unless  we  submit  understanding  to  the 
authority  of  human  nature  as  a  whole,  in  a  human  Faith 
which  includes  man  emotional,  and  man  acting  super- 
naturally — as  well  as  man  thinking  scientifically,  and  at 
last  necessarily  baffled  by  final  mystery  in  so  thinking. 
The  littleness  of  self,  and  the  mystery  of  the  physical 
evolution,  are  relieved  by  the  religious  sense  of  infinite 
reality,  with  the  element  of  venture,  which  impossibility 
of  Omniscience  necessarily  involves.  In  this  disposition 
of  mind  it  seems  as  if — 

"  Our  destiny,  our  being's  heart  and  home, 
Is  with  Infinitude,  and  only  there ; 
With  hope  it  is,  hope  that  can  never  die, 
Effort  and  expectation  and  desire, 
And  something  evermore  to  be." 

iliustra-  Thus  its   quantitative  infinity,  or  physical  incomplet- 

tions  of  the  ableness,  makes  the  final  problem   of  the  universe  look 

Destructive   .  '         ,  .,.  r,  ,.  ,       ,    ., 

and  the       foreign  to  the  scientific  understanding ;  and,  at  its  point 
Construe-     0f   vieW)   envelops   us   and   our  surroundings  at  last  in 
enceofthe  the  impenetrable  darkness  which  dissolves  moral  trust, 
idea  of        Yet,  otherwise  regarded,  this  necessary  margin  of  mystery 
becomes  the  light  of  life ;   the  explanation  of  the  final 
trust,  instead  of  perfect  science,  in  which  human  life  has  to 
be  lived.     One  finds  the  Infinite  casting  its  dark  shadow 
in    Lucretius    and    in    David    Hume,    in    Schopenhauer 
and  Herbert  Spencer:  Philo,  in  Hume's  'Dialogues  con- 
cerning   Natural    Eeligion/    is    Scottish    spokesman    of 
those  who  judge  reality  unapproachable  on  account  of 
its   mysterious    infinity.      But   infinity  turns   its   divine 


PERFECT  GOODNESS  PERSONIFIED.       169 

side  to  Plato  and  Pascal,  to  Descartes  and  Bacon  and 
Locke,  to  Kant  and  Hegel  and  Lotze,  and  to  the  great 
religious  thinkers  of  Christendom  ;  it  unconsciously  in- 
spires martyrs  and  saints  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  it  is 
tacitly  present  even  in  the  physical  faith  of  the  leaders  of 
modern  natural  science,  and  in  the  common  experience  of 
the  senses  in  all  human  beings. 

Modern  thought  confronts  us  with  three  answers  to  the  Atheism, 
final  question  about  the  character  of  the  Omnipresent  or  J^  p™;. 
Universal  Power.  One  of  these  is  the  atheistic  or  agnostic,  theism,  as 
which  professes  inability  to  find  any  intelligible  Power  gjjgjjj 
at  the  root  of  the  temporal  evolution  in  which  we  find  concep- 
ourselves  involved :  human  experience  seems  a  wholly  tious- 
unintelligible  flux — a  succession  of  events  with  an  ap- 
pearance of  order  which  may  not  be  lasting.  Opposite 
to  this  is  the  religious  or  theistic  conception,  according 
to  which,  when  adapted  in  form  to  modern  ideas,  the 
evolving  universe  is  the  constant  expression  of  ever- 
active  moral  reason — so  that  we  are  living  and  moving 
and  having  our  being  in  a  perfect  moral  providence ;  and 
our  final  relation  to  the  operative  Power  is  at  last  per- 
sonal and  ethical,  involving  moral  relations.  Inter- 
mediate between  the  chaotic  universe  of  the  sceptic, 
and  the  morally  or  spiritually  adapted  universe  of 
theism,  is  the  pantheistic  final  conception  of  an  impersonal, 
non-moral,  necessitated  universe ;  in  course  of  evolution 
by  Unknowable  Power,  the  supposed  centre  of  the  un- 
ethical natural  causation,  which  gives  a  sort  of  continuity 
to  the  perpetual  flux  ;— a  continuity  supposed  to  imply  that 
one  thing  somehow  comes  into  existence  through  another 
thing,  into  which  it  may  be  refunded,  and  in  which  all 
existences  are  only  non-moral  things,  not  persons  or  moral 
agents.  Personality,  with  its  implicate  of  moral  agency 
or  responsibility,  is  excluded,  as  that  for  which  there  is  no 
room :  physical  causality  instead  of  spiritual  morality  is 
the  last  word  regarding  existence,  when  emptied  of  moral 
trustworthiness  and  ethical  relations.  This  is  one  form  of 
the  pantheistic  conception  of  the  universe.  Those  who 
adopt  this  flnal  conception  are  commonly  found  fluctu- 


Which  of 
these  three 
is  the  most 
reasonable 


170  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

ating  between  the  universal  nescience  of  the  total  sceptic 
and  the  tranquil  trust  in  providential  moral  order  of  the 
theist,  in  proportion  as  the  physical  pantheism  declines 
into  total  doubt,  or  becomes  invigorated  by  acceptance  of 
some  of  the  ethical  postulates  that  constitute  theism. 

The  spirit  of  the  time  asks  which  of  these  three  atti- 
tudes reason  justifies,  as  the  final  interpretation  of  man's 
life  in   Nature.      Must   we   be  alienated  from   what   we 
attitude?     experience,  in  a  feeling  of  the  ultimate  meaninglessness 
of   the  whole,  or  is  a  divine  reconciliation   possible,  on 
reasonable  terms?      If   the  last,  what  is  the   most  real 
reconciliation  that  a  good  man  can  reach — with  a  view  to 
co-operating  as  it  were  with  the  Omnipresent  Power,  in 
the  infinite  or  finally  mysterious  universe  of  reality ;  and 
how  may  this  be  best  expressed  in  terms  of  philosophy  ? 
Is  it  a  wholly  physical  relation  of  one  thing  to  another 
thing  ;  or  must  it  be  conceived  as  the  relation  of  a  person 
to   a   Person  —  myself    in   personal   relation   to    Perfect 
Goodness  personified  ? 
Am  I  only       The   answer   to    this   question  involves   an   answer  to 
another  : — Am  I  only  a  thing,  or  am  I  also  a  person  ?    Am 
I  obliged  to  believe  that  /  originate  acts  for  which  I  can 
reasonably  be  blamed  or  praised ;  or  must  I  think  of  what 
are  called  my  acts  in  a  wholly  physical  or  non-moral  way ; 
finding  that  they  are  not  really  mine,  but  vaguely  mani- 
festations of  Unknowable  Power — there  being  no  act  that 
comes  into  existence  for  which  I  alone  am  responsible  ? 
Is  the  Universal  Power  manifested  only  in  and  through 
continuous  sequences  in  things  ?     May  not  this  Power  be 
more  fully  and  characteristically  revealed  in  and  through 
moral  agents,  called  persons ; — so  far  independent  of  the 
Universal  Power  as  that  each  of  them  is  able  to  bring  into 
i.ristence  either  what  ought  or  what  ought  not  to  exist? 
And  there-        I   must   now  ask   emphatically,  whether   the   deepest 
fore  finally  ancj  truest  interpretation   of  human  experience  is,  that 
reiatmn'to   in  which  all  is  regarded  merely  as  physical  or  non-moral 
Active        — [n  which  self-conscious  agency  itself  is  only  a  physical 
Son?      event  in  the  continuous  natural  evolution?      Is    not   a 
deeper  and   truer  final  interpretation  needful,  according 
to  which   all  is  finally  unfolded  in   the  light   of   moral 


a  thing,  or 
am  I  a 
person  ? 


PERFECT    GOODNESS    PERSONIFIED.  171 

reason,  popularly  called  conscience,  with  its  sense  of 
remorse  for  what  is  ill  clone  personally,  and  its  absolute 
imperativeness  ?  If  this  last  is  the  final  relation  of  the 
three  primary  data,  we  then  find  ourselves  in  a  universe 
that  is  physically  unintelligible  in  the  end,  in  its  regress 
into  the  unbeginning  past,  and  its  progress  into  the  un- 
ending future ;  but  which,  notwithstanding  this  quantita- 
tive infinity,  inevitably  assumes  towards  us  moral  trust- 
worthiness and  practical  intelligibility,  as  the  revelation 
of  Perfect  Moral  Reason; — so  that  its  secret,  concealed 
from  natural  science  in  the  final  mystery  of  physical 
causality,  is  revealed  (by  implication)  for  all  human  pur- 
poses. Is  not  this  the  filial  attitude,  which  I  ought  in 
faith  to  adopt?  It  is  to  treat  the  universe  as  the 
revelation  to  me  of  perfect  moral  Personality,  and  not 
merely  as  an  unbeginning  and  unending  succession  of 
physical  changes.  Is  not  this  the  interpretation  which 
conscience  and  religion,  when  developed,  put  upon  what 
would  otherwise  be  at  last  a  physical  as  well  as  moral 
chaos  ?  Moral  personification  of  the  physically  infinite 
universe,  translates  its  scientifically  insoluble  causal  prob- 
lem into  one  that  may  be  morally  or  humanly  solved. 
Natural  science  leaves  us  at  last  in  an  infinite  sphere, 
the  centre  of  which  is  everywhere  and  the  circumference 
nowhere.  Conscience,  with  its  implicates  of  personified 
moral  obligation,  and  spirituality  in  man  and  God,  enables 
man  to  read  the  daily  drama  of  life,  in  the  gradual  evolu- 
tion of  inorganic  and  organic  nature,  as  finally  intercourse 
of  moral  being  with  the  Moral  Power  thus  revealed ;  and 
shows  us  ourselves  to  ourselves  as  living  in  what  is  more 
than  a  physical  succession,  because  also,  under  its  highest 
ideal,  the  perfect  order  of  moral  Providence. 

Thus  moral  reason  teaches  us  not  only  that  the  Univer-  So  that 
sal  Power  exists,  but  what  the  character  of  the  Universal  jJ°^Jn 
Power  must  be.    It  expresses,  not  the  meaningless  voice  of  practically 
surrounding  incognisable  Power,   but  the   hopeful   voice  j-©801™8 
of  surrounding  morally  trustworthy  Power ;  a  voice  that  the  final 
absolutely  sustains   the  faith- venture  in  a  natural  order  physical 
that  will  not  finally  put  us  to  confusion,  when  we  trust  it,  UBbegin- 
either  in  the  actions  of  common  life,  or  in  our  scientific  ningand 


172  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

unending  verifications ; — inasmuch  as  it  is  realised  as  providential 
change.  activity  of  perfect  goodness,  instead  of  finally  inexplicable 
physical  necessity.  In  this  recognition  of  perfect  good- 
ness at  the  root  of  all,  I  find  myself  at  home  everywhere, 
because  everywhere  in  a  trustworthy  universe,  which 
gives  to  its  most  distant  place,  and  its  remotest  time,  a 
significance  and  friendliness  that  transforms  and  recon- 
ciles the  otherwise  alienating  physical  infinite.  This  is 
the  light,  that  "  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world  —  the  peace  of  God  that  passeth  understanding." 
One  may  "  take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and  fly  to  the 
uttermost  part"  of  the  universe,  only  to  find  there  the 
same  personified  goodness  which  is  the  supreme  concep- 
tion here,  and  so  may  everywhere  recognise  and  rest  in 
God.  In  this  sense  "*God  dwelleth  within  all  things, 
above  all  things,  beneath  all  things, — above  by  power,  be- 
neath by  sustentation,  within  by  subtlety, — ruling  above, 
containing  below,  encompassing  without,  penetrating 
within, — everywhere  sustaining  by  ruling,  ruling  by  sus- 
taining, penetrating  by  encompassing,  encompassing  by 
penetrating."  This  is  the  language  of  religion,  especially 
in  Christian  religion,  with  its  emphatic  proclamation  of 
infinite  mercy  as  the  implicate  of  infinite  goodness ;  with 
consequent  implication  of  the  purpose  of  Perfect  Good- 
ness to  make  all  bad  persons  in  the  universe  good,  so  far 
as  their  personal  power  to  make  themselves  bad  permits. 
The  crude  ideas  of  religion  in  children,  or  in  the  child- 
hood of  the  race,  and  the  inferior  conceptions  of  primitive 
morality,  are  really  irrelevant  to  the  validity  of  the  un- 
folded religious  conception.  Its  justification  lies  in  what 
it  is  found  to  imply :  this  is  not  rightly  discredited  by  the 
meanness  or  incoherence  of  many  manifestations  of  re- 
ligion. The  crude  and  repulsive  forms  which  the  contents 
and  implicates  of  either  physical  or  spiritual  experience 
at  first  and  afterwards  assumed  must  not  prejudice  them 
at  their  present  stage,  or  in  a  still  fuller  unfolding.  The 
mathematical  calculus  is  not  treated  as  illusion  because 
infants  and  tribes  of  savages  have  confused  ideas  of  number. 
The  postulates  on  which  educated  intelligence  now  relies 
are   presented  in  history  in  various  degrees:    we  accept 


PERFECT  GOODNESS  PERSONIFIED.      173 

them  in  their  rationally  articulated  form,  not  in  their 
rude  embryo  state.  And  so  we  find  God  in  the  idea  of 
Goodness  as  now  enriched  by  experience;  and  Person- 
ality becomes  included  in  the  final  conception,  because 
Moral  Obligation  and  Divine  Goodness  must  be  taken 
as  vitalised,  to  be  intelligible.  The  issue,  not  the 
beginning  and  the  halting  progress  in  the  past,  is  what 
is  truly  significant  for  us.  The  human  organism  may 
have  come  naturally  out  of  protoplasm ;  but  man  is 
not  mere  protoplasm  now,  as  we  find  him  personified 
in  great  physical  discoverers,  or  in  moral   and  religious 


That  the  final  interpretation  of  Nature  is  reasonably  Kantian 
taken  under  a  morally  religious  conception,  not  under  a  Thefsm. 
wholly  physical  one,  is,  I  think,  not  inconsistent  with 
Kantian  philosophy ;  although  Kant  has  been  claimed  by 
Huxley  as  one  of  the  two  chief  pioneers  of  modern  agnos- 
ticism, on  the  ground  of  the  destructive  criticism  which 
Kant  directs  against  purely  logical  proof  of  God.  His 
analysis  of  scientific  reason  seems  to  end  in  showing  that 
absurdity  is  involved  in  every  endeavour  to  interpret  the 
riddle  of  the  universe.  Whether  its  final  mystery  is  ap- 
proached cosmologically,  in  the  argument  for  a  Divine 
Cause,  or  teleologically,  in  the  argument  for  a  Divine  De- 
signer, or  ontologically,  in  abstract  reason,  it  refuses  to 
yield  its  secret  to  human  understanding.  And  if  Kant  had 
ended  with  this  destructive  criticism,  his  authority  might  be 
produced  in  support  of  agnostic  despair ;  for  one  can  find  as 
little  morally  religious  satisfaction  in  principles  of  abstract 
reason  as  in  a  view  of  things  as  finally  accidental.  But 
Kant,  I  think,  meant  more  than  this :  his  philosophy  in 
its  completeness  is  not  necessarily  inconsistent  with  its 
beginning.  Scientific  understanding  is  not  the  whole 
of  reason.  If  man  were  only  physically  scientific,  the 
secret  of  the  world  would  be  so  much  out  of  his  reach 
that  he  could  not  justify  the  moral  confidence  that  is 
implied  even  in  his  interpretations  of  external  nature. 
For  nature,  with  its  infinity  in  space  and  duration,  and  its 
final  causal  mystery,  becomes  incapable  of  being  trustfully 


174 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Physical 
or  scienti- 
fic reason 
culminates 
m  moral 
reason. 


For  physi- 
cal faith 
in  natural 
order  pre- 
supposes 


handled  by  roan,  when  its  final  problem  is  regarded  as  a 
wholly  physical  problem.  The  unbeginning  and  unending 
material  rebels  against  the  limits  of  an  intelligence  meas- 
ured by  sensuous  quantity.  When  finite  intelligence  is 
thus  required  to  do  infinite  work,  it  must  either  become 
paralysed  by  paradoxes  that  arise  in  its  attempt  to  image 
the  necessarily  unimaginable — to  subordinate  eternity  to 
time,  or  immensity  to  place,  as  the  physical  speculator 
has  to  do  when  he  resolves  to  dispose  of  them  only 
physically.  Man  in  the  fulness  of  his  being  —  man 
moral  and  religious,  as  well  as  man  the  scientific  observer 
— must  be  in  exercise,  when  he  is  confronted  with  the 
final  question ;  and  a  religious  conception  of  the  whole,  in 
which  the  physical  one  merges  in  the  end,  is  what  has 
to  be  looked  for,  in  intelligence  like  the  human,  that  is 
intermediate  between  omniscience  and  nescience. 

Natural  science,  accordingly,  is  arrested  by  reason  when 
the  naturalist  proceeds  to  take  the  final  question  within 
his  own  province.  The  check  is  administered,  Kant's 
reasoning  seems  to  imply,  by  showing  the  contradictions 
in  which  we  are  landed,  if  we  insist  upon  approaching  the 
infinite  reality,  not  with  our  entire  spiritual  humanity, 
but  only  with  the  data  and  presuppositions  of  reason  as 
measured  by  sense.  Faith  in  physical  order  gives  support 
indeed  to  the  verified  hypotheses  on  which  scientific 
progress  turns ;  but  cosmical  faith  may  mislead  in  the 
end,  unless  man  can  reasonably  put  eternal  trust  in  the 
moral  perfection  of  the  Universal  Powert;  and  regard  ex- 
perience, not  as  an  aimless  procession  of  sequences,  which 
may  in  the  end  play  him  false,  but  as  manifested  moral 
providence.  Even  physical  interpretation,  in  its  faith  in 
the  steadiness  of  order,  and  the  adaptation  of  natural  order 
to  human  intelligence,  proceeds  tacitly  upon  a  moral  and 
religious  conception  of  the  Whole.  Hitman  nature  forces 
us  to  acknowledge  in  existence  more  than  physical  nature, 
if  man  is  more  than  sentient. 

This  finally  religious  meaning  of  the  temporal  drama 
cannot  be  logically  proved  :  but  physical  order,  assumed 
in  all  scientific  verification,  is  assumed  without  reason 
when  religious  faith  in  the  perfect  goodness  of  the  Uni- 


PERFECT    GOODNESS    PERSONIFIED.  175 

versal  Power  is  withdrawn :  without  this  deeper  faith,  the  moral 
temporal  process  may  be  supposed  at  any  time  to  subside  ^the6n°e 
into   chaos,  to  the   confusion  of  intelligence   and  moral  Universal 
reason ;  so  that  the  basis  even  of  physical  inference  may  Power- 
turn  out  to  be  a  broken  reed.     The  agnostic  naturalist  is 
expressing  unconfessed  moral  faith  when  he  proceeds  upon 
the  validity  of  "  verification  " ;  for  he  is  taking  for  granted 
that  scientific  intelligence  will  not   be  put  to  confusion 
when  it  shows  its  trust  in  the   Universal  Power  by  in- 
ductive ways   of   dealing  with  events.     Their  past  order 
of  sequence  is  not  reason,  unless  it  is  so  reinforced  by 
moral  faith  as  that  nature  is  accepted  as  manifestation 
of  Active  Moral  Eeason,  and  therefore  incapable  of  im- 
posing upon  us  diabolical  illusion,  when  we  daily  trust  in 
its  physical  uniformities. 

An  idea  of  this  sort  was  perhaps  unconsciously  at  the  A  moral 
bottom  of  the  vindication  of  the  veracity  of  human  nature  c^VinJ*6 
and  its  faculties,  which  Descartes  hints,  in  his  autobio-  universe°of 
graphical  explanation  of  his  own  philosophical  recovery  coSouS'y 
from  a  state  of  tentative  doubt  about  everything.     How  implied  in 
do  I  know,  he  had  asked  himself,  that  even  in  what  my  Descai^'£ 
faculties  most  certainly  assure  me  of,  they  may  not  after  all  tive  vindi- 
be  deluding  me  ?     My  relation  to  my  surroundings  may  ^ti°n  of 
be  finally  either  determined  blindly,  or  determined,  not  faculties. 
according  to  perfect  moral  reason,  but  to  diabolical  caprice. 
For  instance,  am  I  reasonably  sure  that  I  have  a  body, 
only   because   I   see    my   body ;    or    that    other    persons 
exist,  only  because  I  cannot  help  believing  this  ?     How 
can   I   justify  the    faith    which   I    indulge    in,   that    the 
customary   course  of  nature  is   so   uniform  and   reliable 
that  I   may   expect  similar  issues  to  those   which   were 
evolved   under  like  conditions  in    the   past?      Or    what 
assurance  can  one  have  when  he  looks  back  into  the  past 
in  memory ;    or  into    the  distant  or    future  in  scientific 
calculation  ?     Why  may  not  the  scientific  understanding 
deceive  in  the  future,  even  although  it  may  never  happen 
to  have  deceived  in  the  past  ?     How  do  I  know  that  wak- 
ing  perception  is  not  as  illusory  as   a  dream   in  sleep  ? 
For  all  these  may  be  experiences  in  a  universe  in  which 


176 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  trust- 
worthiness 
of  experi- 
ence pre- 
supposes 
that  the 
existence 
presented, 
to  us  in 
our  senses 
and  in  con- 
sciousness 
is  fit  to  be 
believed  in. 


This  is  not 
a  conclu- 
sion from 
premisses, 
but  recog- 
nition of  a 
necessary 
postulate. 


the  Universal  Power  is  blind,  or  insane,  or  perhaps  a 
diabolical  providence. 

But  if,  instead  of  this,  I  deliberately  presuppose  per- 
fectly good  omnipotent  and  omnipresent  Power,  eternally 
operative,  I  am  only  giving  expression  to  the  faith  that 
is  at  the  root  of  all  other  faith,  deeper  than  which  I 
cannot  go.  If  God,  or  Perfect  Goodness,  is  supreme, 
external  nature  and  my  original  faculties  cannot  delude 
me.  For  this  would  be  to  suppose  that  the  Universal 
Nature  and  my  nature  are  in  contradiction,  so  that  I  might 
be  obliged  throughout  my  experience  to  believe  a  lie. 
The  presupposition  that  forbids  the  entrance  of  this 
total  scepticism  is  the  presupposition  that  God  or  Perfect 
Goodness  is  omnipresent  and  omnipotent.  The  trust- 
worthiness of  my  original  nature,  and  the  interpretability 
of  universal  nature,  presuppose  the  constant  action  of 
morally  perfect  Power  at  the  heart  of  the  Whole. 

This  is  not  direct  argumentative  proof:  when  we 
try  to  make  it  so  it  becomes  circular  reasoning.  It  is 
only  the  conscious  expression  of  a  postulate,  without  tacit 
practical  assent  to  which  human  knowledge  and  human 
agency  must  dissolve  in  total  doubt.  The  truth  that  one 
finds  in  the  heart  of  attempts  to  vindicate  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  our  original  faculties,  or  common  rational  sense, 
is,  that  God  —  Omnipotent  Goodness  —  is  unconsciously 
presupposed  in  the  reliableness  of  experience.  If  I  do 
not,  at  least  tacitly,  indulge  in  this  moral  faith,  I  cannot 
even  make  a  beginning  in  anything.  For  unless  in 
fact  I  am  justified  in  interpreting  the  universe  as  the 
manifestation  of  what,  in  its  ultimate  principle,  is  per- 
sonified moral  order  and  perfect  goodness,  phenomena 
cannot  be  interpreted  even  physically — as  in  the  natural 
sciences,  and  in  the  common-sense  perceptions  and  acts 
of  daily  life.  Agnosticism  as  to  ethical  religion  carries  in 
it  universal  agnosticism,  including  physically  scientific 
paralysis  as  well  as  religious  paralysis.  Intrepidly  pur- 
sued it  is  total  anarchy  or  lawlessness.  Cosmic  faith 
depends  on  ethical  trust  in  the  universe  of  reality;  and 
this  moral  faith,  in  its  religious  form,  becomes  theistic. 
Otherwise  even  what  original  human  nature  cannot  help 


PERFECT    GOODNESS    PERSONIFIED.  177 

believing  may  be  false — an  illusory  necessity.  Unless  we 
take  for  granted  that  we  are  ushered  at  birth  into  perfect 
moral  providence,  our  interpretations  of  our  temporal  ex- 
perience may  in  the  end  put  us  to  confusion.  One  cannot 
logically  argue  all  this,  by  direct  argumentative  appeal  to 
premisses  in  which  it  is  logically  contained  ;  but  one  virtu- 
ally assumes  God  in  practically  presupposing  the  absolute 
reign  of  order.  When  I  am  sure  that  life  cannot  be  a  lie, 
this  means  that  I  cannot  help  believing  that  God  exists — 
that  goodness  is  supreme  and  eternal.  I  am  tacitly 
assuming  that  the  whole  cannot  be  a  devil's  drama.  Faith 
in  final  ethical  harmony — in  perfect  moral  trustworthiness 
at  the  root  of  experience — is  the  ultimate  practical  postu- 
late of  human  life. 

The  commingling  of  scientific  ignorance  with  religious  Mr  Herbert 
faith — the  infinitely  unknowable  God,  yet  presupposed  Spencer, 
in  all  experience — suggests  the  negation  accepted  by  Mr 
Herbert  Spencer  as  the  principle  of  his  synthetic  phil- 
osophy. I  name  with  the  utmost  respect  this  distinguished 
representative  of  philosophical  or  theological  inquiry,  to 
which  he  has  devoted  a  long  life,  with  indomitable  intel- 
lectual persistency,  and  a  noble  honesty  of  purpose  of  which 
there  are  few  examples — combined  with  a  largeness  of  spec- 
ulative aim  and  architectonic  disposition  that,  even  at  a 
distance,  reminds  one  of  Aristotle  or  Hegel,  and  among 
Englishmen  of  Bacon,  although  one  misses  the  splendour 
of  philosophical  imagination,  and  the  classical  culture  of 
the  author  of  the  '  Advancement  of  Learning.'  Mr  Spencer 
attracts  the  average  intelligence  much  as  Auguste  Comte 
found  response  in  a  like  popular  constituency  in  France, 
and  then  throughout  the  world.  Dissimilar  in  many  ways, 
these  philosophers  are  not  unlike  in  the  fortune  of  their 
repute — undue  depreciation  at  first,  in  the  academical 
coteries  of  Europe ;  exaggerated  credit  since  among  the 
multitude.  As  Comte  has  been  called  the  philosopher  of 
the  half-educated,  so  too  it  may  be  said  of  Mr  Spencer, 
without  disrespect,  for  the  office  is  a  high  one.  They 
will  both  in  time  take  their  due  place,  intermediate  be- 
tween extremes  of  depreciation  and  deification. 

M 


178 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Science  and  The  consummation  of  Mr  Spencer's  speculation  is  that 
Religious  a  juai  universe  of  material  and  mental  appearances  is 
the  temporal  manifestation  of  eternally  Unknowable 
Power.  Accumulated  arguments  and  illustrations  pave 
the  way  to  his  conclusion  that  the  Power  underlying 
appearances  is  totally  and  for  ever  incognisable,  from 
the  limitation  of  human  intelligence.  Common-sense,  he 
seems  to  say,  postulates  an  ultimate  Power;  science 
proves  that  this  Power  cannot  be  what  we  can  think; 
psychology  shows  why  we  can  not,  and  yet  are  com- 
pelled to  believe  in  it;  and  in  this  final  assertion  of  a 
Reality  utterly  inscrutable,  Eeligion  finds  an  assertion 
essentially  coinciding  with  its  own.  We  are  mentally 
obliged  to  regard  every  phenomenon  in  experience  as 
the  manifestation  of  Power  by  which  we  are  acted  on. 
Omnipresence  is  indeed  unthinkable;  yet,  as  experience 
discloses  no  bounds  to  the  universe,  we  are  unable  to 
think  limits  to  omnipresent  Power,  but  science  teaches 
us  that  it  is  Power  Incomprehensible.  And  this  conviction 
of  Incomprehensible  Power  is  what  gives  rise  to  religion 
and  expresses  itself  in  worship.  Religion,  he  suggests, 
has  vainly  struggled  to  unite  more  or  less  science  with  its 
inevitable  nescience,  while  Science  has  vainly  tried  to 
conquer  this  religious  nescience,  as  though  it  were  able 
to  convert  it  into  Science.  Permanent  peace  between 
Eeligion  and  Science  is  possible  only  when  Science  be- 
comes convinced  that  its  explanations  are  proximate  and 
relative,  and  when  Religion  becomes  convinced  that  it  is 
only  the  sentiment  of  that  which  must  be  for  ever  inex- 
plicable. Accordingly,  Mr  Spencer  would  divorce  Science 
and  Religion  in  the  distribution  of  goods.  He  would 
assign  to  Science  all  human  knowledge,  such  as  it  seems 
to  be,  and  reserve  all  human  ignorance,  such  as  it  must 
be,  for  Religion.  Religion  is  the  Unintelligible  Feeling 
in  which  Knowledge  that  is  only  seeming  inevitably 
merges  at  last. 
Empty  Consciousness  of  being  always  in  the  presence  of  ^  Un- 

sense  of  knowable  Power  seems  to  be  Mr  Spencer's  final  attitude 
SSePower,  towards  the  universe  in  which  we  are  having  our  being, 
as  man's    '  Strictly  interpreted,  this  is  thorough-going  agnosticism — 


PERFECT    GOODNESS    PERSONIFIED.  179 

total  nescience :  and  this,  as  I  have  repeatedly  suggested,  final  at- 
leaves  no  room  for  man  to  express  himself  at  all  about  fcitudeto- 
anything  otherwise  than  in  the  form  of  a  question — if  universe  in 
even  thus  ;  for  wholly  sceptical  interrogation  necessarily  ?!h[ch  lie 
dies  in  birth  :  it  can  only  be  a  still-born  question.  Yet  the 
philosophy  of  Mr  Spencer  consists  of  more  than  universal 
questioning.  Its  negative  assertion  of  final  Unknowable- 
ness  is  combined  with  many  positive  assertions.  The 
"  Unknowable "  Power  is  affirmed  positively  to  be  a 
"  manifested "  Power :  we  are  told  that  "  the  Power 
manifested  in  the  universe  is  unknown  and  unknowable." 
P>ut  how  can  Power  that  makes  itself  "  manifest,"  in  our 
material  and  spiritual  experience,  be  luholly  unknown  ? 
That  looks  like  the  self-contradictory  assertion,  that  the 
Power  is  at  once  manifested  and  not-manifested  —  that 
we  know  that  it  exists,  but  without  being  able  to  predi- 
cate anything  of  it,  not  even  existence,  or  existence 
only  when  the  word  is  emptied  of  all  meaning.  That 
which  manifests  itself  must  be  known,  as  far  as  the 
manifestation  or  revelation  goes.  That  the  Infinite 
Eeality  stretches  without  limit  heyond  the  manifestations 
that  are  presented  in  the  physical,  moral,  and  religious 
experience  of  men  —  including  of  course  the  rational 
postulates  involved  in  this  experience — need  not  trans- 
form the  light  that  is  within  the  experience  into  the  dark- 
ness of  total  ignorance.  Even  if  it  could  do  this,  so  long 
as  there  is  light  enough  remaining  to  enable  one  to  make 
the  one  negative  assertion  of  its  eternal  unknowable- 
ness,  he  must  have  enough  of  knowledge  about  the  Power 
manifested  in  the  universe  to  justify  this  negation.  But 
Mr  Spencer  retains  a  good  deal  more  than  wholly  nega- 
tive knowledge.  His  Unknowable  Power  reveals  itself  in 
ways  that,  on  his  own  showing,  admit  of  a  hierarchy 
of  sciences  being  formed,  which  interpret  some  of  its 
experienced  manifestations.  And  the  human  sciences  of 
the  revelations  which  the  Unknowable  Power  makes 
of  itself  are  presented  by  Mr  Spencer  in  elaborate  co- 
ordination. The  Unknowable  Power  is  so  much  mani- 
fested that  man  is  able  to  generalise  its  proceedings — 
constructive  and  destructive — and  thus  to  describe  note- 


180 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


"  Mani- 
fested " 
Power 
cannot  be 
wholly 
unknown 
and  un- 
knowable. 


Oscillation 
between 
Panthe- 
ism and 
Pyrrhon- 
ism. 


worthy  characteristics  of  its  customary  behaviour.  It 
seems,  by  his  account,  to  be  a  Power  which,  in  its 
sensuous  manifestations,  is  revealing  itself,  slowly  and 
gradually,  in  evolutionary  order.  At  a  stage  in  this 
process,  he  finds  states  of  human  consciousness  emerg- 
ing, in  persistent  correlation  with  organic  motions ;  so 
that  external  phenomena  are  accompanied  or  followed 
by  correlative  psychical  phenomena.  The  hierarchy  of 
the  natural  sciences,  in  which  those  manifestations  of 
the  "  Unknowable  Power "  are  co-ordinated,  is  surely  a 
standing  proof  that  the  Universal  Power  is  not  in  every 
way  unknowable.  The  verified  contents  of  the  sciences 
of  matter  and  mind  are  a  considerable  contribution  to 
practical  knowledge  of  the  Universal  Power,  with  implied 
trust  too  in  its  steady  conduct,  at  least  in  man's  physical 
intercourse  with  it. 

How  far  the  revelations  of  the  Universal  Power  that 
are  within  reach  —  in  the  physical,  assthetical,  moral, 
and  religious  experience  of  men,  with  the  indispensable 
spiritual  implicates  of  that  experience  —  how  far  these 
carry  man  on  the  way  to  omniscience  or  infinite  know- 
ledge, is  of  course  a  further  question.  Enough  that  the 
Universal  Power  is  not  wholly  unmanifested  or  unre- 
vealed.  It  is  doubtless  only  a  physical  God  and  a 
physical  religion  that  we  have  in  the  sequences  of  sense- 
presented  evolution ;  interpreted  in  the  sort  of  natural 
theology  commonly  called  natural  science ;  sustained  by 
the  attenuated  religious  faith  which  tacitly  enters  even 
into  physical  faith.  For  this  gives  only  a  boundless  and 
endless  universe  of  things — not  recognising  persons  at  all, 
in  the  moral  meaning  of  personality. 

This  philosophy  seems  to  oscillate  between  the  phase  of 
Pantheism  which  interprets  the  universe  as  a  partial 
revelation  of  infinite  non-moral  Power,  and  the  Nescience 
of  total  scepticism.  Yet  there  is  in  it  a  tacit  theistic 
faith — so  far  as  nature  is  treated  as  worthy  of  confidence, 
reliable,  what  may  be  taken  for  a  true  revelation  of  the 
Universal  Power ; — so  far  a  trustworthy  universe ;  not 
either  a  blind  or  a  diabolical  universe,  that  may  at  any 
moment  paralyse  human  activity  and  intelligence — perhaps 


PERFECT    GOODNESS    PERSONIFIED.  181 

by  transforming  itself  into  chaos  and  still  keeping  us  in 
insane  life. 

Mr  Spencer  ends  in  the  cosmic  faith,  that  men  are  infinite  or 
things,  causally  connected  under  Unknowable  Power,  but  ^aiPer- 
without  acknowledging,  in  moral  and  religious  faith,  sonality. 
that  men  are  persons,  or  moral  agents,  in  moral  correla- 
tion with  eternal  Omnipotent  Goodness.  Because  man 
cannot  comprehend  the  Universal  Power  in  its  incom- 
pletable  physical  order ;  and  because  he  finds  himself, 
when  he  tries  to  do  this,  involved  in  a  tissue  of  contra- 
dictory propositions,  therefore  nothing  can  be  really 
known,  either  speculatively  or  practically, — this  seems  to 
be  the  outcome  of  Mr  Spencer's  argument.  I  find  myself 
in  contact  and  collision  with  an  evolving  and  finally  dis- 
solving world,  of  which  I  am  a  part  —  an  unbeginning 
and  unending  evolution — in  which  I  cannot  by  all  the 
methods  of  physical  inquiry  discover  any  final  meaning  or 
purpose:  therefore,  1  must  dismiss  as  unwarranted  the 
religious  interpretation,  in  which  all  is  accepted  as  the 
manifestation  of  morally  trustworthy,  or,  as  we  might 
say,  personal  agency.  A  theistic  final  interpretation  seems 
to  mean  for  Mr  Spencer,  that  the  Universal  Power  must 
have  a  personal  life ;  so  much  like  man's  own  that  it  is  a 
theatre  of  successive  conscious  states.  And  as  a  person, 
whether  called  finite  or  infinite,  can  be  conscious — so  he 
takes  for  granted  —  of  only  one  finite  state  at  a  time, 
Divine  Omniscience  is  dismissed  as  an  absurdity.  The 
Omniscience  that  has  to  comprehend  Boundlessness  in 
space  and  time  cannot  consist,  it  is  concluded,  with  per- 
sonal consciousness. 

The  inference,  on  ground  of  this  sort,  that  the  universe  is  a  Divine 
does  not  admit  of  being  at  last  religiously  interpreted  by  ^^d  iu  a 
man,  reminds  one  of  the  quaint  conceit  of  Du  Bois  Bay-  theisticaiiy 
mond,  who  refused  to  believe  in  God  until  he  could  find  faterpret- 
somewhere  in   space  a  huge  brain,  like  the   human,  with  verse? 
warm  arterial  blood  and  ganglia,  proportioned  to  the  great- 
ness of  a  Creative  Mind  that  was  dogmatically  supposed 
to  need  cerebral  organisation.     As  if  the  Universal  Power 
could  not  be  treated  by  us  as  personified  Goodness,  unless 
embodied   in   an    organism   like   the   human.      It  seems 


182 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Examples 
of  a  human 
knowledge 
of  that 
which 
passes  hu- 
man under- 
standing 
and  specu- 
lative im- 
agination. 


hardly  less  reasonable  to  insist,  that  if  man's  final  relation 
to  God  is  moral  or  personal,  Perfect  Goodness  must  be 
the  subject  of  successive  conscious  states  of  personal  life 
like  those  of  human  intelligence. 

A  human  knowledge  of  what  at  last  infinitely  passes 
human  knowledge — practical  knowledge  of  what  is  at  last 
physically  incognisable  —  is  illustrated  all  round  the 
horizon  of  human  experience.  Take  examples.  One  can 
demonstrate  the  geometrical  relations  of  figures  ;  yet  the 
Immensity  toward  which  all  finite  places,  shapes,  and 
sizes  inevitably  carry  thought  is  found  to  transcend  human 
understanding ;  but  human  understanding  does  not,  on 
this  account,  reject  Euclid  as  a  bundle  of  unwarranted 
and  illusory  conclusions.  Again,  I  am  obliged  to  think 
of  events  as  before  and  after,  and  I  find  that  I  can  make 
reasonable  use  of  a  chronological  table ;  yet  I  cannot 
fathom  the  mystery  of  the  two  eternities  into  which  I  am 
necessarily  carried.  Further,  the  manifestations  of  natural 
causality  presented  in  sense  are  interpretable  in  science, 
and  for  practical  human  purposes,  although  they  are  all  at 
last  involved  in  the  impenetrable  causal  mystery  of  un- 
beginning  regress  and  endless  progress.  Si  non  rogas, 
intelligo.  In  those  cases  I  understand,  if  I  am  not  obliged, 
as  the  condition  of  understanding,  to  think  in  images 
the  mysteries  into  which  they  resolve  themselves.  Is  it 
otherwise  with  man's  religious  faith  in  the  Universal 
Power?  This  too  suggests  questions  which  man  can  as 
little  answer,  about  a  Being  as  inaccessible  as  Immen- 
sity is  from  the  spaces  that  can  be  comprehended  in 
figures,  or  as  Eternity  is  from  the  periods  that  can  be 
measured  in  tables  of  chronology.  I  am  not  obliged 
to  be  agnostic  as  regards  either  the  places  or  the  periods, 
because  Immensity  and  Eternity  raise  a  multitude  of 
questions  which  man  can  never  answer.  May  not  moral 
and  religious  experience  of  persons,  including  its  neces- 
sary postulates,  reveal  what  is  even  eternally  true — 
relatively  eternal  truth  —  while  its  ultimate  problems 
perplex  man  with  contradictions,  if  he  tries  to  conquer 
them.  I  do  not  see  why,  "  unless  I  wish  to  be  deceived," 
I  must  surrender  as  delusion  either  my  physical  or  my 
religious   trust,   only   because  human  knowledge  cannot 


men 


PERFECT    GOODNESS    PERSONIFIED.  183 

become  infinite  intelligence ;  or  because  man's  intclligo 
disappears,  when  he  is  asked  to  transform  it  into  the 
Omniscience  from  which  faith  and  mystery  are  wholly 
eliminated. 

Those  who,  with  Mr  Spencer,  turn  away  from  a  finally  Are 
uninterpretable  universe  in  despair,  so  think  and  act,  he  \™&y™. 
tells  us  pathetically,  "  not  because  they  wish  to  do  this,  duced  to 
but  because  they  must " :  self-deception  seems  to  him  the  Sg^jjj0, 
only  alternative  to  despair.  He  acknowledges  that  "  there 
is  no  pleasure  in  the  consciousness  of  being  an  infinitesimal 
bubble,  on  a  globe  which  is  itself  infinitesimal,  compared 
with  the  totality  of  things.  Those  on  whom  the  unpity- 
ing  rush  of  changes  inflicts  sufferings,  which  are  often 
without  remedy,  find  no  consolation  in  the  thought  that 
they  are  at  the  mercy  of  blind  forces,  which  cause,  indif- 
ferently, now  the  destruction  of  a  sun,  and  now  the  death 
of  an  animalcule.  Contemplation  of  a  universe  which  is 
without  conceivable  beginning  or  end,  and  without  intel- 
ligible purpose,  yields  no  satisfaction.  The  desire  to  know 
what  it  all  means  is  no  less  strong  in  the  agnostic  than  in 
others,  and  raises  sympathy  with  them.  Failing  to  find 
any  interpretation  himself,  he  feels  a  regretful  inability 
to  accept  the  interpretation  others  offer."  Yet  these 
striking  sentences  do  not  after  all  describe  a  wholly  unin- 
terpretable  universe.  For  they  imply  knowledge  that  the 
Power  everywhere  at  work  is  "  blind,"  and  that  man  lives 
on  a  globe  that  is  "  infinitely  small "  compared  with  what 
it  seems  is  known  to  be  a  "  totality " :  they  imply,  too, 
that  enough  is  knowable  about  the  Universal  Power  to 
justify  assertions  about  "realities  which  must  not  be 
abandoned  for  deceiving  fancies."  They  imply  trust  in 
the  physical  universe ;  they  discard  as  self-deception  the 
religious  trust  that  is  the  guarantee  of  the  physical — both 
faiths  logically  unproved,  but  both  justified  in  practical 
reason,  inasmuch  as  without  them  human  life  is  baseless, 
and  its  ideal  unapproachable. 

Pveligious  faith  in  the  Power  that  is  universally  opera-  ggg^ 
tive   in  the  ever  -  changing  universe  is  not  equally  de-  SpSritmvi 
veloped  in   all  men,  nor  so  widely   among  men  as  the  Faith. 
degree  of  faith  involved  in  natural  science.    How  and  why 
is  "this  so  ?     Coleridge  suggests  an  answer :  "  It  is  not  in 


184  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

our  power  to  disclaim  our  nature  as  sentient  beings ;  but 
it  is  in  our  power  to  disclaim  our  nature  as  moral 
beings."  In  recognising  the  finally  ethical  and  divine 
constitution  of  the  cosmos,  "  I  assume  a  something,  the 
proof  of  which  no  man  can  give  to  another,  yet  every 
man  may  find  for  himself.  If  any  man  assert  that  he 
cannot  find  it,  I  am  bound  to  disbelieve  him.  I  can- 
not do  otherwise  without  unsettling  the  very  foundations 
of  my  own  moral  nature.  The  reasoners  on  loth  sides 
commence  by  taking  something  for  granted.  But  the 
pure  physicist  assumes  what,  according  to  himself,  he 
neither  is  nor  can  be  under  an  obligation  of  moral 
reason  to  assume.  If  he  uses  the  word  obligation,  he 
can  mean  only  physical  necessity.  To  overthrow  faith 
in  aught  higher  than  physical  necessity  is  the  very  pur- 
pose of  his  argument.  He  desires  you  only  to  take  for 
granted  that  all  reality  is  included  in  physical  nature, 
and  he  may  then  safely  defy  you  to  ward  off  his  con- 
clusion— that  nothing  real  is  excluded."  That  faith  in 
its  spiritual  degree  often  fails  to  rise  into  consciousness,  is 
exemplified  by  contrast,  in  the  men  who  are  types  of  man 
at  his  best  and  highest — who  represent  that  in  humanity 
which,  while  normal,  is  not  universally  awakened — felt 
and  seen  by  saint  and  prophet — in  others  dormant  or 
obscured.  This  recalls  words  long  ago  uttered  in  Palestine 
— "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God." 
Summary.  Quern  nosse  vivere.  The  inevitable  postulate  of  Perfect 
Omnipresent  Goodness,  presupposed  in  the  reliability  of 
experience,  implies  the  Eternal  Gospel  —  God  is  love. 
This,  therefore,  is  the  tacit  moral  postulate  of  all  human 
intercourse  with  the  Universe,  through  experience  and  its 
implicates.  The  gospel  of  infinitely  merciful  love,  implied 
in  omnipotent  goodness,  is  latent  in  the  constitution  of 
man;  which  accordingly  responds  to  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness of  this  love,  finding  that  faith  in  God  may  be- 
come the  perfection  of  human  intelligence.  Omnipotent 
Goodness  is  at  once  the  tacit  moral  presupposition  and 
highest  outcome  of  human  experience.  This  may  be  rec- 
ognised in  another  way,  at  the  point  of  view  we  are  next 
to  occupy. 


185 


LECTUEE   V. 

OMNIPOTENT    GOODNESS. 

Religious   life    as   it   unfolds   in    man  makes  him  per-  Does  not 
sonify  Perfect  Goodness,  the  ideal  of  personal  or  moral  ^perience 
agency.      This    religious    recognition   of    absolute   moral  in  the 
goodness  constitutes   theistic  faith.     It  is    unconditional  ^™*s® 
trust    in   eternal   moral   providence    that    1    rind   tacitly  Onmipo- 
at  the  bottom  of  the  recognition  of  even  physical  trust-  ^  G°od- 
worthiness    in    experience,   which   is    postulated    in   the  the  root 
actions  of  men,  and  in  their  natural  science.     Must  not  of  things 
even   physical  faith   dissolve   without  an  implied   moral  g0ns? 
and  religious   trust  ?      Unless   men    practically   take  for 
granted  that  natural  sequence  is  neither  a  temporary  acci- 
dent nor  the  contrivance  of  diabolical  Power,  they  cannot 
interpret    nature,    nor    employ    nature    in    their   service, 
in  the  spirit  of   the  Novum  Organum.     When   I   try   lo 
think   out    and    apply    the    wholly    agnostic    conception 
of  the  universe,  I  find  myself  becoming  scientifically  and 
morally   paralysed.     The   intelligibility    of   nature,   upon 
which  our  use  of  it  depends,  disappears  in  the  dissolution 
of  faith  in  the  Universal  Power.     Man  is  rescued  from 
total    scepticism   through   trust  in   the  divine  synthesis. 
The  individual  ego  and  the  outer  world  are  unintelligible 
and  impracticable,  unless  Omnipotent  Goodness  is  tacitly 
presupposed.     Is  man  doing  justice  to  his  true  self  and  to 
reason,  when  he  leaves  dormant  the  unconditional  moral 
trust,  which  unconsciously  sustains  his  experience;  or  when 
he  tries  to  get  rid  of  the  data  of  conscience,  which  makes 
perfectly  good  or  absolutely  reasonable  Will  supreme  ? 


186  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

Theistic  These  questions  lead  to  further  investigation  of  theistic 

or  moral      trust,  as  man's  final  attitude  towards  the  universe.     This 
tadtly         may   be   contemplated  from  the  point  of  view  occupied 
postulated   ^j  those  who  offer  "proofs"  of   the  existence   of   God. 
encee^peri"    But  the  word  proof  must  be  used  in   a  qualified  mean- 
ing  when    so    applied.      If    theistic   faith   is    itself    the 
implied    condition    of    all    proof,   it   must    be    incapable 
of  scientific  proof.     "Did  you  deduce  your  own  being?" 
asks    Coleridge.     "Even    this   is    less    absurd    than    the 
conceit  of  deducing  the  Divine  Being.     Never  would  you 
have  had  the  notion  had  you  not  had  the  idea — rather 
had  not  the  idea  worked  in  you  like  the  memory  of  a 
name  which  we  cannot  recollect,   yet  feel  that  we  have  ; 
which  reveals  its  existence  in  the  mind  only  by  a  restless 
anticipation;    and  proves  its   a  priori  actuality  by   the 
almost  explosive  instantaneity  with  which  it  is  welcomed 
and  recognised."     Moral  trust  in  the  Universal  Power  is 
the  postulate  of  a  finite  experience.     Yet  it  may  have  its 
consistency   with  reason  philosophically   unfolded.      Are 
the   difficulties   involved   in   its   action   at    the    root    of 
human   nature   as   great    as   the  difficulties  involved  in 
its   agnostic  suspension?     Anyway,  in   dealing  with  the 
rationale  of  the  religious  conception  of  human  life,  phil- 
osophy is  dealing  with  something  that  is  already  involved 
in  man's  experience — already  manifesting  itself  in  human 
feeling,  conduct,  and  thought.     We  do  not  need  to  bring 
it  there  by  reasoned  proofs:   indeed,  we   never  bring  it 
into  existence  in  the  form  of  a  conclusion  directly  evolved 
from  finite  premisses.    It  exists  spontaneously  beneath  ex- 
perience, although  its  conscious  growth  in  the  individual 
may  be  repressed,  or  at  least  arrested  in  a  rudimentary 
stage.     The  verified  inductions  of  science  show  unproved 
moral  trust  in  spontaneous    exercise;    but   inquiry  into 
the  reasonableness  of  this  trust  in  the  Universal  Power 
is  always  open  to  the  philosophical  analyst  who  cares  to 
reflect  upon  what  he  is  actually  living  by.     So  too  with 
the  more  distinctly  religious  faith,  on  which  physical  trust 
itself  in  the  end  depends.     It  operates  before  it  is  un- 
folded philosophically.     Still  it  is  open  to  the  philosophic 
analyst  to  reduce   to  its  elements  the  complex  fact  of 


OMNIPOTENT    GOODNESS.  18/ 

religious  reliance  on  the  final  principle  of  the  universe. 
He  may  inquire  whether  a  faith  deeper  than  the  faith 
found  in  science  is  only  an  anachronism,  likely  to  die 
out  gradually  in  the  fuller  evolution  of  humanity  ;  or,  on 
the  contrary,  an  inevitable  implicate  of  experience,  which 
becomes  more  enlightened  in  proportion  to  the  advance  of 
men  in  though tfulness  and  goodness. 

What  are  called  "  demonstrations  "  and  "  logical  argu-  Alleged 
ments  "  that  "  God  exists  "  are  really  more  or  less  success-  eaTteieo-' 
ful  analyses  of  the  rational  implicates  of  spontaneous  trust  logical,  and; 
in  the  Universal  Power.  On  what  sort  of  Power  does  faith  ??p°J°?*c*1 
rely;  and  are  we  justified  in  this  absolute  reliance?  In  of  theism. 
what  consists  the  reasonableness  of  the  conception  of 
perfectly  good  Power  finally  operative?  These  questions 
underlie  so-called  theistic  "  proofs,"  each  of  which  takes 
its  own  way  of  showing  the  reasonableness  of  theistic 
faith.  Thus  one  way  of  doing  this  is  through  what 
is  virtually  a  philosophical  analysis  of  the  principle  of 
causality — that  principle  on  which  man  rests  when  he  con- 
templates the  universe  of  change ;  and  this  analysis  is  at 
the  root  of  what  is  called  "  cosmological  proof  "  of  theism. 
Another  way  of  showing  the  reasonableness  of  religious 
faith  has  been  observation  of  obtrusive  cases  of  natural 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends — especially  ends  that  benefit 
man  —  final  causes  as  they  are  ambiguously  called. 
Adaptations  of  this  sort,  whether  or  not  they  are  sup- 
posed universally  to  pervade  evolving  nature,  at  least 
present  themselves  strikingly  in  organised  matter,  animal 
and  vegetable :  the  construction  of  the  human  eye  is  a 
favourite  example.  The  universe  is  reported  to  abound 
in  curious  and  useful  superhuman  contrivances,  many  of 
them  signally  adapted  to  promote  human  happiness,  and 
in  the  long-run  to  improve  man — towards  whose  indi- 
vidual evolution  and  education  the  whole  planetary  evolu- 
tion seems  to  conspire ;  as  if  the  world  were  contrived 
for,  or  culminated  in,  the  evolution  of  man.  In  this  we 
have  the  "  teleological "  explanation  of  religious  faith,  and 
the  teleological  way  of  developing  the  religious  conception 
of  the  universe. 

These  venerable  "  proofs  "  are  now  commonly  supposed 


188  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

Kant's  cri-  to  have  encountered  damaging  intellectual  handling  on 
ticismof  foe  part  of  Immanuel  Kant.  Ever  since  he  criticised 
logif 1C  them,  they  have  been  more  or  less  discredited.  The  dis- 
credit is  probably  not  undeserved,  if  any  of  them  is  so 
misconceived  as  to  be  taken  for  a  logical  proof  of  man's 
moral  or  religious  faith  in  the  Universal  Power.  They 
are  discredited  so  far  as  they  are  finite  arguments  that 
pretend  to  determine  a  conclusion  which,  being  infinite  or 
unconditioned,  is  not  determinable  by  the  logic  of  the 
understanding  measured  by  sense.  For  reasoning  becomes 
a  tissue  of  paralogisms,  when  it  tries  to  bring  the  infinite 
reality,  as  a  finite  quantity,  under  logical  conditions 
that  are  adapted  to  what  is  finite.  Yet  those  ''proofs," 
when  each  is  resolved  into  its  principle,  help  to  illustrate 
the  reasonableness  and  humanity  of  theis tic  faith. 

is  Theism        Take  the  Principle  of  Causality.     Estimate  the  proof 
involved  in  t}iat  q.0(j  exists,  because  the  world  must  be  caused.     May 
con^ptim1!   the  theistic  interpretation  of  the  universe   be  treated  as 
of  the         faith  in  the  final  form  and  ultimate  application  of  the  causal 
universe?    ^i^jle  ?     In  assuming,  as  we  must,  the  dependence  of 
every   change   upon    a  "cause,   are   we    not   assuming   its 
dependence   at   last  on    the  only   originating  cause  that 
enters  as  an  implicate  into  human  experience — that  is  to 
say,  on  Active  Moral   Reason,  or   perfectly  Eeasonable 
Will?     Consider  what   causality  finally  means   and   in- 
volves.     We    all    recognise    causation    as    the   universal 
implicate    of   experience   in    this    ever  -  changing  world  : 
we  unavoidably  proceed  in  life  on  the  supposition  that, 
because  we  are  living  among  changes,  we  must  be  living 
among   causes.      The  causal  relation  is   of   all  relations 
the   most   universal;    and    for   natural   science,  physical 
causation  is  final.     It  is  the  category  which  comprehends 
all  change  under  itself.     Intelligence  in  man  in  a  world 
of  change  gives  the  first  signs  of  its  activity  in  craving 
vaguely  for  causes. 
Without  But  what  sets  human  intelligence  agoing  in  search  of 

faith  in  cause ;  and  what  is  ultimately  meant  by  the  word  cause, 
therfcolid  when  'it  points  to  that  of  which  intelligence  is  in  quest  ? 
be  no  jn  an  immutable  universe  there  would  be  no  need  for  the 


OMNIPOTENT    GOODNESS.  189 

craving,  and  no  room  for  the  idea,  nor  room  therefore  for  science  of 
a  conscious  life  like  man's ;  for  with  us  consciousness  events- 
necessarily  involves  change.  It  is  the  metamorphosis  or 
continuous  change  to  which  all  things  and  persons  are 
subject,  and  through  which  they  reveal  to  us  their  rela- 
tions to  one  another,  that  raises  in  man  the  final  question, 
Why  all  this  is  so  ?  Human  mind  is  awakened  in  this 
temporal  evolution,  in  which  man  participates  ;  and  which, 
as  far  as  we  can  see,  is  in  process,  if  not  in  progressive 
amendment,  from  everlasting  to  everlasting.  This  was 
expressed  by  Heraclitus  of  old  in  the  formula  iravra 
<pel — All  things  flow.  The  actual  is  the  changeable: 
everything  seems  to  be  and  yet  not  to  be :  it  is  at  once 
being  and  becoming.  By  an  irresistible  necessity  every 
event  carries  thought  beyond  the  event  itself,  to  some 
preceding  form  of  existence  out  of  which  the  event  has 
emerged,  as  the  evolved  equivalent  of  its  natural  cause. 
For  we  have  been  gradually  taught  to  believe  in  an 
equivalence  or  proportion  between  the  event  as  an  effect, 
and  that  event  in  the  preceding  form  of  its  natural  cause ; 
so  that  whatever  appears  in  the  new  form  must  have  its 
due  corresponding  phenomenon  in  a  form  preceding,  which 
custom  calls  its  cause.  Science  rests  on  the  unproved  faith 
that  this  is  so;  for  if  this  were  not  so,  verification  by 
experiment  would  be  impossible:  the  organised  know- 
ledge of  events  which  is  called  science  could  not  come 
into  conscious  existence  in  human  minds.  Calculated 
comparisons,  with  a  view  to  inductive  generalisation, 
would  lose  their  indispensable  working  postulate,  if  this 
"  causal "  connection  between  new  forms  of  existence  and 
their  old  forms  were  not  a  dependable  connection.  If  there 
were  no  natural  causality  in  the  universe — no  physical 
order — there  could  be  no  physical  science,  and  no  experi- 
ence available  for  the  conduct  of  life.  The  indispens- 
able director  amidst  otherwise  chaotic  change  would  be 
wanting. 

For    consider   what    inquisitive    intelligence    and    the  The  secular 
secular  wants  of  men  have  secured  for  themselves,  when  $ ^Jg 
the  discovery  is  made  that  some  phenomenon,  otherwise  ingknow- 
an  orphan  in  the  universe,  has  found  its  parentage  in  cer-  ledse  of 


190 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


physical 
causes. 


But  dis- 
covery of 
natural 
causes 
leaves 
events  fin- 
ally unex- 
plained ; 
because 
every  nat- 
ural cause 
itself  needs 
a  prede- 
cessor, in 
endless 
regress. 


tain  other  phenomena.  Increasing  knowledge  of  constant 
relations  between  new  phenomena  and  their  old  equiva- 
lents is  the  minister  of  happiness  to  mankind:  human 
pains  and  pleasures  are  effects,  all  dependent  on  natural 
causes  —  on  causes  in  the  outside  world,  and  then  on 
those  within  the  human  organism ;  and  men  are  able,  so 
far,  to  direct  the  causal  currents  into  useful  channels. 
Man  as  the  servant  of  nature,  as  Bacon  advises  us,  can 
do  so  much,  and  so  much  only,  as  he  has  observed  of  the 
causal  order  of  nature.  Human  knowledge  of  constant 
sequences  and  human  power  are  correlatives.  Where  the 
natural  cause  is  not  perceived  by  man,  the  natural  effect 
cannot  be  secured  by  man  :  nature  to  be  commanded  must 
be  obeyed :  that  which  in  our  thought  is  the  cause  is 
transformed  in  active  life  into  our  rule.  It  is  only  by 
obedience  to  the  rules  of  the  universe  that  man  can 
live,  in  a  universe  that  is  undergoing  constant  metamor- 
phoses— on  which  human  thoughts,  sensibilities,  and  overt 
actions  are  dependent.  We  are,  without  our  leave,  en- 
tangled while  we  live  in  the  universal  web  of  natural 
causation. 

Yet  notwithstanding  its  obvious  utility,  the  discovery 
of  merely  natural  causes  leaves  the  craving  of  human 
intelligence  dissatisfied.  For  the  predecessor  out  of  which 
a  change  has  naturally  emerged,  and  of  which  the  change 
is  a  metamorphosis,  itself  equally  needs  a  causal  pre- 
decessor. The  discovered  natural  cause,  being  only  a 
finite  object,  must  itself  be  only  an  effect.  In  seeking  for 
a  natural  cause  the  mind  is  seeking  for  what  is  necessarily 
unsatisfying.  The  cause  to  be  found,  if  it  is  to  give 
unconditional  relief,  must  be  other  than  the  provisional 
causes  registered  in  physical  science ;  for  each  of  these 
requires  a  preceding  natural  cause.  The  scientific  dis- 
covery that  oxygen  and  hydrogen  are  naturally  the  causal 
equivalent  of  water,  or  the  discovery  that  heat  is  a  con- 
ditional metamorphosis  and  equivalent  of  modes  of 
motion,  has  brought  the  discoverer  no  nearer  the  satis- 
faction which  his  complete  spiritual  consciousness  demands 
than  he  was  before  he  reached  them — notwithstanding  the 
useful    command    of   nature,   which   growing   knowledge 


OMNIPOTENT    GOODNESS.  191 

of  natural  causes  carries  with  it.  The  old  form  of  each 
new  phenomenon  as  much  needs  to  be  resolved  into  reason 
as  the  new  form  itself  did ;  and  when  we  have  reached  what 
physical  science  accepts  as  its  ideal,  we  have  still  only 
enlarged  our  natural  outlook  by  a  wider  empirical  general- 
isation. The  need  for  originating  cause,  which  can  alone 
satisfy  reason,  remains  in  other  respects  as  urgent  as 
before.  The  search  for  wholly  natural  causes  is  like  the 
search  for  the  source  of  a  river  that  has  no  source.  As 
in  adding  finite  spaces  to  finite  spaces,  however  vast  the 
resulting  space  becomes,  we  are  obliged  to  believe  that  we 
are  no  nearer  Immensity  or  Boundlessness  than  we  were 
when  we  began  to  add ;  or  as  millions  of  years  form  a 
duration  that  is  really  no  nearer  than  a  single  moment 
is  to  the  unbeginning  and  unending  Duration, — so  the 
endlessly  regressive  search  for  natural  causes,  with  the 
discovery  of  more  and  more  extensive  physical  laws,  or 
customary  uniformities,  in  the  natural  procedure,  leaves 
us  still  in  search  of  the  operative  Power  omnipresent 
throughout  the  natural  network.  In  truth  natural 
causes  and  natural  evolution  of  phenomena  explain 
nothing.  Eesponse  to  the  causal  craving  is  only  pro- 
visionally provided  by  them.  They  present  an  orderly 
procession  of  effects  —  not  the  Agent  in  the  universal 
drama. 

But  is  the  mere  feeling  of  discomfort,  occasioned  by  But  is  our 
the  insufficiency  of  natural  causation,  a  sufficient  reason  ^^fsfjc. 
for    recognising    more    than    an    ultimately    inexplicable  tionwitii 
natural  causality  ?     Is   not  this  to  indulge  in  a  ground-  ^^rely 
less  conjecture  —  that  since  natural  science  cannot  give  causation 
all  we  desire,  a  divine  Cause  must  exist;  because  with-  ;aJ^s^tor 
out   God  our  dissatisfaction  must  continue.     Is  not  this  Qmni- 

to  proceed  upon  the  unproved  postulate,  that  we  cannot  potent 
,      f .    .         .      i  .  * ,     ,    .    L  n    i  •       Goodness  ! 

be  living  in  a  universe  that  is  a  constant  source  of  dis- 
appointed desire  ?  Are  men  entitled  to  conclude  that 
because  natural  science  gives  only  unbeginning  and  un- 
ending sequence,  finally  unexplained,  there  must — for  our 
relief — be  something  more  ?  Does  it  follow  that  because 
the  material  world  appears  to  the  sensuous  understanding 
to  be  naturally  in  endless  orderly  sequence,  there  must 


192  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

therefore   exist   Omnipotent   Will,    or   Perfect    Goodness 

eternally  active  ? 

Our  feeling       If  all  that  could  be  found  in  this  relation  were  only  an 

of  restless-  unComfortable  feeling  of   causal  dissatisfaction,  the   un- 

p?esencetbe  satisfied    causal    craving   would    surely    be   no   sufficient 

ofauni-      rationale    of   faith   in   final   omnipotence    and    goodness. 

naturaf       Of    the    seemingly   unbeginning  and   unending  evolution 

causes         0f   changing   phenomena,    only   an   insignificant    portion 

iTseifan       can  come   within  the  personal  experience  of  each   man, 

insufficient  or  within  the  collective   experience  even  of  the  human 

fa?thinOT    race-      To    S°     Devond    this   narrow    experience,   on    the 

God.  ground   of  uneasy  feeling,   looks   like  saying  that   there 

must  be   more  than   natural   causation  —  that  a   wholly 

physical  conception  of  the  world  must  be  fundamentally 

misleading — merely  because  the  scientific  supposition  is 

uncomfortable,  when   we   think   it   out.      And  if  natural 

causality  must  be  the  only  causality,  there  is  no  ground  for 

faith  in  a  finally  satisfying  Power :   we  must  at  last  face 

endless   change  —  that   sceptical   aspect   of   the   Infinite, 

which    dissolves    moral   trust  in    the   idea   of   capricious 

temporal  process — evolution  without  a  constant  morally 

trustworthy  Evolver.     The  supposed  cosmological  proof  of 

the  reality  of  the  Divine  Evolver  becomes  only  our  vague 

feeling  of  dissatisfaction  with  all  merely  finite  quantity. 

While  But,  while  natural  causes,  taken  as  ultimate,  conceal 

natural        Qocij  man,  as  moral  agent,  presents  and  reveals  Power 

exclusively  in  the  form   of  originating  cause,  personally  responsible 

looked  at,    for   effects.     I    should   rather   say   that   external   nature 

God'the      conceals   God,   only   if   God    is    not   otherwise   revealed, 

spiritual      as  through  spiritual  experience.      With   this   revelation, 

tionofMan  external   nature   itself    becomes   for    us    symbolic    of    the 

reveals"       divine :   each  fresh  discovery  of  a  natural  cause  may  then 

GofL  be  interpreted  as  only  a  further  and  fuller  revelation  of 

the  eternal  moral  Providence  of  which  natural  (so-called) 

"  agency  "  is  the  effect  and  expression.     After  ^  God  has 

been  found  in  the  moral  experience  of  man,  which  points 

irresistibly  to  intending  Will,  as  the  only  known  Cause 

that  is  unconditional   or  originating,  the   discovery,  that 

this  is  the  natural  or  provisional  cause  of  that,  is  recog- 


OMNIPOTENT    GOODNESS.  193 

nised  as  the  discovery  that  this  is  the  divinely  constituted 
sign,  or  constant  antecedent,  of  that.  The  whole  natural 
succession  is  then  conceived  as  manifestation  of  Per- 
sonal agency :  the  universe  in  its  temporal  process  is  seen 
to  be  reasonably  interpretable  as  the  constantly  mani- 
fested moral  activity  of  the  universal  Omnipresent 
Power;  in  a  way  to  which  our  bodily  organism,  as  de- 
pendent on  our  will,  is  in  faint  analogy  —  the  human 
microcosm  the  symbol  of  the  infinite  Macrocosm. 

I  may  still  be  asked  what  in  reason  justifies  this  deific-  For  in  our 
ation  of  the  ultimate  issue  of  the  causal  demand  ?     The  ®JP?"ence 

.  1  IIld.Il 

existence  of  a  vague  feeling  of  discomfort  is  not  enough,  as  morally 
But  we  find  in  man  more  than  dissatisfaction  with  the  g^feonwe 
inadequacy  of  all  natural  causes.     We  find  obligation  to  find  what 
recognise   himself  as   a  person,  or  as  the  finally  deter-  Power 
mining  cause  of  changes  in  himself  and  in   nature  for 
which  he  is  morally  responsible.     This  experience  throws 
deeper  meaning  into  Causation,  meaning  derived  from  re- 
sponsible Will,  the  only  cause  within  human  experience 
that  is  finally  satisfying; — a  cause  which  not  only  does 
not  need  a  regress,  but  which  even  forbids  us  to  go  be- 
hind Will  for  explanation  of  acts  for  which  the  willing 
agent  is  answerable.     Man  exemplifies  in  his  moral  or  im- 
moral acts  what  a  cause  is  that  is  really  a  cause,  seeing 
that  it  cannot  be  in  its  turn  an  effect.      He   originates 
acts,  so  far  as  he  can  be  praised  or  blamed. 

Eegarded  as  visible  organisms,  men  form  part  of  the  As  physi- 
natural  process :  they  can  neither  be  praised  nor  blamed  ^amsorf^n 
for   being   what   they    are   necessarily,  in    virtue   of    an  share  in 
inherited  organism.     Man   does  not,  as  a  visible  organ-  J^^JjJJJ1 
ism,  create  himself:   he  is  evolved   according  to  natural  which 
law.      But   although   organised    naturally,   he   is    found,  mx^^[ 
under  the  natural  evolution,  to  contain  spiritually  what  theytran- 
is  more  than  physical ; — at  least  if  one  is  justified  in  scencl- 
reason    in    attributing    personal    blame,    for    determina- 
tion to  act,  or  to  refrain  from  acting.     Conscience,  like 
a  finger-post,  points  to  responsible   agents  of  voluntary 
acts  as,  in  their  moral  relation  to  those  acts,  examples,  and 
the  only  examples,  of  causal  agency  that  man  comes  in 
sight  of ;   and  it   suggests   that  when  we  come  in  sight 

N 


194 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


In  physical 
science  the 
universe  is 
interpreted 
with  ex- 
clusive re- 
gard to  the 
natural 
or  caused 
causes 
which  it 
contains. 


Sinners 
and  saints 
alike,  in 
the  light 
of  wholly 
physical 
science. 


The 
universe 


of  this,  we  have  what  may  justify  us  in  reading  the 
universe  in  its  continuous  evolutionary  process,  morally 
and  religiously,  as  well  as  physically  and  biologically. 

Of  course  nature  may  also  be  read  only  physically,  or 
strictly  in  terms  of  natural  causation.  It  is  possible,  by 
abstraction  of  all  that  is  spiritual  in  man,  to  withdraw 
moral  colouring,  as  it  were,  from  the  procedure  of  events, 
and  to  treat  the  succession  as  non-moral.  Indeed,  natural 
science  requires  one  to  make  this  abstraction,  on  the 
principle  of  divided  intellectual  labour ;  and  because  its 
treatment  of  phenomena  under  moral  conceptions  might 
disturb  that  unbiassed  search  for  physical  causes  or 
signs  of  changes,  which  is  the  office  of  the  naturalist. 
Natural  science  has  to  find  the  physical  sequences  in  the 
universe  that  are  constant,  without  regard  to  the  moral 
goodness  or  badness,  or  their  originating  cause. 

Thus  the  molecular  changes  which  succeed  one  an- 
other in  the  brain,  nerves,  muscles,  and  external  organs 
of  a  murderer,  when  he  is  engaged  in  a  murder, 
and  also  the  molecular  changes  which  occur  in  the 
brain,  nerves,  muscles,  and  external  organs  of  a  saint, 
which  issue  in  an  overt  act  of  philanthropy,  are, 
for  natural  science,  alike  non-moral  or  non-religious ;  they 
are  contemplated  out  of  relation  to  conscience  and 
divine  agency.  The  series  of  natural  sequences  in  the 
visible  organism  of  the  murderer  is  scientifically  as  ad- 
mirable as  those  of  which  the  visible  organism  of  the  saint 
is  the  theatre.  They  are  both  interpreted  under  the  same 
conception  of  natural  causality;  and  the  natural  causes 
which  the  organism  of  the  murderer  illustrates  are  neither 
more  moral  nor  more  immoral  in  themselves  than  those 
which  lead  up  to  the  most  signal  overt  act  of  "  altruism," 
or  of  religious  adoration.  The  biology  of  the  criminal 
makes  natural  science  as  well  as  the  biology  of  the  saint. 
Natural  gravitation  and  natural  evolution  are  neither 
praiseworthy  nor  blameworthy.  They  are  methods  ac- 
cording to  which  the  Universal  Power  determines  the 
procession  of  events. 

Now,  just  as  the  physical  process  of  growth,  and  the 
overt  changes  in  the  organisms  of  criminals  and  saints,  are 


OMNIPOTENT    GOODNESS.  195 

in  themselves  indifferent  to  the  moral  conceptions  under  of  change, 
which  they  may  be  brought — in  that  deeper  interpretation  ph^J-jS 
of  the  universe  into  which  the  ideas  of  moral  obligation  and  inter- 
personality  enter — so  too  the  continuous  physical  evolution  Preted- 
of  the  universe  of  caused  causes,  which,  for  all  we  can 
tell,  is  an  unbeginning  and  unending  process,  may  in  like 
manner  be  contemplated  in  abstraction  from  the  omni- 
present operative  and  responsible  Power  that  pervades  the 
whole;  and  therefore  in  abstraction  from  its  moral  and 
relioious  meaning.  In  all  natural  sciences  this  abstraction 
is  made ;  leaving  for  their  appropriated  share  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  world,  the  office  of  filling  in  hitherto 
undiscovered  terms  in  the  register  of  natural  sequences, 
and  the  attainment  in  this  way  of  more  and  yet  more 
extensive  physical  generalisations.  Each  discovery  in 
science  is  the  discovery  of  something  in  the  sequence  of 
visible  nature  that  was  before  concealed ;  with  the  often 
illustrated  issue  that  persons  are  able  to  live  more  happily 
within  the  naturally  determined  machine.  To  think  of 
the  world  as  the  natural  process  of  organisation  and  dis- 
organisation— the  terms  of  which  men  are  bound,  by  re- 
gard for  science  and  for  their  comfort,  to  interpret  according 
to  the  established  sequences, — this  is  to  think  of  things 
as  the  wholly  physical  inquirer  does.  But  unless  proof 
is  forthcoming  that  a  conception,  higher  than  a  physical 
one,  yet  in  harmony  with  it,  is  not  consistent  with  reason ; 
unless  the  difficulty  of  a  religious  or  optimist  interpreta- 
tion of  the  world  can  be  shown  to  be  greater  than  an 
atheistic  or  pessimist  interpretation ;  unless  the  homo 
mensura  principle,  upon  which — in  an  attenuated  form 
— natural  science  itself  rests,  forbids  the  theistic  inter- 
pretation, —  I  say,  unless  proof  of  this  is  forthcoming, 
what  is  unreasonable  in  the  religious  conception  of  the 
facts  and  laws  which  form  the  boast  of  modern  science  ? 
To  invest  the  discovered  natural  sequences  with  a  moral 
and  spiritual  glory,  by  reading  the  whole,  and  in  all  its 
parts,  in  relation  to  what  is  highest  in  man,  and  not  in 
relation  to  his  sensuous  intelligence  only — this  is  not  to 
discredit  natural  science  but  to  invest  it  with  a  crown. 
u  In  the  entrance  of  philosophy,"  says  Bacon,  "  when  the 


196 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


If  all 

natural 

causation 

is  finally 

Divine 

Causation, 

natural 

science 

cannot 

contradict 

Religion. 


Recogni- 
tion of 
natural 
causation, 
instead  of 
capricious 
agency,  in 
the  final 
interpreta- 
tion of  the 
universe. 


second  causes,  which  are  next  unto  the  senses,  do  offer 
themselves  to  the  mind  of  man,  if  it  dwell  and  stay  there, 
it  may  induce  some  oblivion  of  the  Highest  Cause ;  but 
when  a  man  passeth  on  further,  and  seeth  the  dependence 
of  causes,  and  the  works  of  Providence,  then,  according 
to  the  allegory  of  the  poets,  he  will  easily  believe  that  the 
highest  link  of  nature's  chain  must  needs  be  tied  to  the 
foot  of  Jupiter's  chair." 

The  natural  and  the  religious  interpretations  of  the 
world  cannot  conflict  with  one  another,  if  each  discovery  of 
a  natural  cause  is  recognised  as  also  a  divine  revelation, 
involving  the  moral  providence  that  continuously  makes 
nature.  Those  educated  in  this  conception  no  longer  see 
in  the  physical  antecedent  a  usurper  of  the  Universal  or 
Divine  Power.  What  ground  is  there  for  the  assumption, 
that  to  find  the  natural  cause  of  an  event  is  to  rescue  that 
event,  as  it  were,  from  divine  agency;  and  that  if  the 
constant  physical  antecedents  of  all  the  changes  that 
occur  in  nature  could  be  detected,  there  would  then  be  no 
room  for  God?  Surely  the  more  successfully  scientific 
inquiry  is  applied  to  the  sequences  presented  in  ex- 
perience, the  more  fully  God  is  revealed  ;  and  if  we  could 
realise  the  scientific  ideal,  by  finding  the  natural  causes 
of  all  events,  we  should  then  be  in  full  possession  of  the 
self -revelation  given  in  outward  nature  of  the  Perfect 
Person,  of  whom  the  ideal  man  is  the  faint  symbol  and 
adumbration. 

Successful  search  for  the  actual  physical  order  of  the 
world  is  claimed  as  the  distinguishing  character  of  modern 
progress.  In  the  early  ages  of  the  world,  among  imper- 
fectly educated  races  and  individuals,  natural  appear- 
ances, ordinary  as  well  as  extraordinary,  are  referred  to 
the  capricious  personal  action  of  spirits.  In  this  crude 
imperfectly  developed  religion,  fear  is  therefore  the 
characteristic  sentiment.  All  visible  motions  are  the 
animated  motions  of  foolish,  if  not  wicked,  spirits.  Fire, 
air,  earth,  and  water  had  each  their  separate  spirits: 
thunder  was  emphatically  the  voice  of  God.  The  wayward 
agency  of  those  incalculable  forces  obstructed  the  philo- 
sophical conception  of  universal  natural  order.     Science 


OMNIPOTENT    GOODNESS.  197 

now  reacts  against  the  capricious  agency  of  spirits.  But 
natural  law  is  by  some  assumed  not  only  to  supersede 
fetichism  and  polytheism,  but  to  be  inconsistent  with  the 
idea  of  the  divine  foundation  of  things,  and  of  continuous 
divine  agency  as  the  operative  power  at  work  in  all  so- 
called  natural  agency.  The  assumption  is  further  made 
that  causation  must  be  only  natural,  or  that  natural 
causation  is  final.  Accordingly,  in  proportion  as  natural 
causes  are  one  by  one  discovered,  God  becomes  more 
and  more  superfluous :  natural  law  takes  His  place ;  so 
that  if  any  room  is  left  for  God  (which  is  doubtful),  it 
must  be  somewhere  in  the  far  past,  when  the  world  in 
its  orderly  process  was  set  agoing.  And  if  scientific 
inquiry  should  ever  be  able  to  refer  all  events  to  natural 
causes,  it  would,  on  this  hypothesis,  have  rid  the  world 
of  religion.  Scientific  and  religious  thought  of  this  crude 
sort  necessarily  pull  in  opposite  directions.  Theism, 
identified  with  the  irregular  action  of  a  capricious  spirit, 
becomes  an  anachronism,  and  divine  action  appears  anti- 
natural.  A  religious  interpretation  of  the  universe 
looks  like  a  retrograde  movement  —  a  relapse  into  the 
childish  or  savage  condition  of  thought,  to  which  the 
idea  of  physical  causes  and  natural  order  is  foreign.  It 
seems  to  mean  surrender  of  the  territory  conquered  by 
experiment  and  the  scientific  understanding,  when  they 
have  substituted  natural  causes  for  the  irregular  ones 
of  superstition.  Under  those  ideas  of  what  causation 
means,  and  of  what  theism  means,  the  religious  interpre- 
tation of  events  seems  only  covert  polytheism,  or  at  least 
of  like  intent  as  a  working  postulate.  Spinoza  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  David  Hume  and  the  Enlightenment 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  reinforced  to-day  by  a  group  of 
speculative  naturalists,  have  warned  the  world  of  its  intel- 
lectual danger,  as  long  as  personal  agency — assumed  to 
be  even  in  God  capricious  or  irregular  agency — is  per- 
mitted to  take  the  place  of  persistent  order,  in  what  is 
ambiguously  called  Nature,  which  (under  a  metaphor)  is 
supposed  to  rule  actively  by  its  laws. 

But  are  spiritual  agency  in  the  Universal  Power,  and  Omnipo- 
physical  order  in  the  effect,  necessarily  inconsistent  ?     On  teut  sPint* 


tent. 


198  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

uai  agency  the  contrary,  each  seems  to  present  one  side  of  a  truth 
and  natural  comm0n  to  both.  Dependence  on  persons — agents  in  the 
necessarily  meaning  of  "agency"  that  our  moral  experience  makes 
inconsis-  intelligible  —  agents  who  exert  rational  will  —  seems  to 
be  the  only  satisfying  sort  of  power  of  which  man  is 
aware.  It  finds  imphilosophic  expression  in  the  cruder 
religions,  and  in  the  superstitions  that  even  now  confuse 
Christian  thought,  which  largely  fails  to  comprehend 
how  the  Power  manifested  to  man's  senses  must  be  a 
Power  that  produces  cosmos,  not  chaos  —  so  that  the 
effects  of  Divine  agency  are  universally  orderly.  But 
scientific  faith  has  to  be  purged  of  its  superstitions  as 
well  as  religious  faith.  Progressive  substitution  of 
natural  order  "for  capricious  interference  need  not  super- 
sede final  agency  that  may  be  conceived  as  personal ; 
and  which  in  the  Perfect  Person  must  be  the  sustaining 
centre  of  what  is  ultimately  perfect  rational  order,  how- 
ever far  that  order  may  transcend  man's  limited  means 
for  interpreting  it.  It  is  after  superstition  is  exchanged 
for  the  theistic  faith  that  treats  the  natural  universe  as 
one  form  of  the  manifestation  to  man  of  Omnipresent 
Spirit,  that  religious  thought  and  scientific  thought  co- 
incide, instead  of  contradicting  one  another.  Then  God 
becomes  more  fully  known,  through  fuller  scientific  ap- 
prehension of  divinely  maintained  sequences.  Neither 
the  irregular  agency  of  a  capricious  Spirit,  nor  the  con- 
stant order  of  visible  effects,  is  man's  final  conception 
of  existence,  which  recognises  the  voice  of  Conscience 
inviting  us  to  comprehend  the  natural  evolution  as  also 
eternal  moral  providence. 

Summary.  The  lesson  of  this  lecture  is  that  religious  thought  and 
physically  scientific  thought  about  the  universe,  instead 
of  destroying,  really  strengthen  one  another,  in  their  rec- 
ognition of  continuous  divine  activity,  or  endless  crea- 
tion under  forms  of  natural  order.  For  the  natural  order 
may  be  interpreted  as  a  revelation  of  perfectly  reason- 
able Will,  with  which  man  is  constantly,  if  often  only 
unconsciously,  in  intercourse — for  good  or  evil,  in   pro- 


OMNIPOTENT    GOODNESS.  199 

portion  as  his  individual  will  tends  to  assimilation  with 
this  Will  of  God.  Thunder  is  no  longer  the  voice  of  an 
interfering  God,  because  it  is  a  startling  phenomenon  :  it 
is  a  revelation  of  God,  because  it  is  recognised  as  an  event 
that  makes  its  appearance  under  divinely  natural  law  in 
the  orderly  evolution — 

"For  if  He  thunder  by  law,  the  thunder  is  yet  His  Voice." 


200 


LECTUEE  VI. 


OMNIPRESENT   DIVINE   ADAPTATION. 


Retrospec 
tive. 


We  have  found  in  man's  moral  experience  of  a  power 
that  must  be  uncaused,  because  responsible  for  its  effects, 
relief  for  the  causal  craving  that  is  at  the  root  of  all 
scientific  inquiry.  This  relief  comes  through  moral 
experience,  in  a  practical  form;  not  through  physical 
experience,  with  its  unbeginning  and  endless  succes- 
sion of  natural  causes.  Deliberate  personal  volition,  for 
which  a  person  can  be  justly  praised  or  blamed,  must 
originate  in  a  person  who  is  morally  responsible.  This 
unique  example  of  power  may  be  taken  as  practically  and 
for  us  a  type  of  the  mysterious  Power  constantly  at 
work  at  the  heart  of  things,  determining  the  physical 
order,  upon  faith  in  which  daily  life  and  scientific  induc- 
tion proceed.  The  universe  may  be  treated  by  man  as 
for  him  the  revelation  of  moral  Power,  even  if  the  terms 
"  rational  will "  and  "  moral  reason  "  represent  the  Infinite 
Power  inadequately. 

There  are  at  last  two  rival  ways  of  regarding  the 
universe.  There  is  the  hypothesis  of  an  unbeginning  and 
postuates.  unending  physical  succession  of  changes,  metaphorically 
spoken  of  as  a  "  chain  " — an  infinite  chain  of  non-moral 
sequences:  there  is  also  the  hypothesis,  which,  without 
removing  the  infinite  mystery  of  physical  unbeginning- 
ness  and  unendingness,  sees  in  the  manifested  universe  of 
things  and  persons,  interpreted  in  science,  the  constant 
revelation  of  active  moral  Keason.  It  is  true  that  both 
these  hypotheses  leave  us  at  last  enveloped   in  what  is 


Two  rival 
ultimate 


OMNIPRESENT    DIVINE    ADAPTATION.  201 

mysterious  to  sensuous  understanding ;  the  mystery  into 
which  each  retires  at  last  makes  an  inevitable  demand 
upon  moral  trust.  In  accepting  either  of  them  we  must 
at  last  be  acting  in  moral  faith,  instead  of  seeing  the  All 
with  the  intellectual  vision  of  omniscience ;  for  in  finite 
mind  perfect  intellectual  vision  finds  its  substitute  in  final 
moral  trust  or  faith. 

On  comparing  these  two  hypotheses,  it  appears  that  the  The  two 
final  mystery  of  an  infinite  physical  regress  and  progress  l^L^d. 
of  non-moral  causes  embraces  no  satisfying  cause  at  all ; 
but  the  other  hypothesis  supplies  what  meets  the  causal 
craving,  while  it  also  meets  the  spiritual  constitution  of 
man.  On  this  ground  alone,  it  would  appear  to  be  an 
obligation  of  reason  finally  to  interpret  the  universe,  not 
atheistically  or  agnostically,  as  the  wholly  physical  postu- 
late does,  but  theistically,  according  to  the  spiritual.  The 
first  leaves  us  in  physical,  because  in  moral,  chaos:  it 
professes  physical  faith  in  a  universe  in  the  movements 
of  which  it  can  have  no  moral  trust.  The  second  still 
presupposes  physical  trust,  as  proceeded  upon  in  inductive 
science,  but  without  adopting  the  negative  assumptions  of 
some  speculative  naturalists  ;  for  it  finds  that  physical 
order  and  its  reliability  postulate  moral  order  or  moral 
providence.  The  atheist — in  disclaiming  as  superfluous 
perpetually  operative  moral  Power  in  all  natural  change, 
as  the  guarantee  of  the  customary  uniformity  which  he 
dogmatically  assumes — is  virtually  saying  that  evolution 
in  physical"  nature  can  have  no  spiritual  meaning ;  that 
events  must  happen  without  trustworthy  reason,  because 
we  dare  not  presuppose  divine  order.  He  is  left  without 
ground  for  his  faith  that  they  will  continue  to  happen  ac- 
cording to  the  forecasts  of  science ;  or  that  in  the  future 
all  may  not  become  uninterpretable  chaos  ;  or  that  the 
changing  universe  may  not  suddenly  subside  into  change- 
lessness.  The  moral  key  for  our  intercourse  with  the  out- 
side universe  has  been  wantonly  thrown  away,  under  the 
pressure  of  an  assumption  that  after  all  is  less  compre- 
hensible than  the  theistic ;  while,  by  discarding  active 
moral  reason,  it  leaves  us  with  a  universe  emptied  of  what 
makes  it  as  a  natural  evolution  worthy  of  scientific  trust. 


202 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  causal 
and  the 
teleological 
concep- 
tions of  the 
universe 
distin- 
guished. 


Observa- 
tion of 
natural 
construc- 
tions, a 
popular 
proof  of 
Divine 
Design. 


This  theistic  interpretation  of  natural  causation,  which 
sees  Divine  Power  pervading  physical  sequence,  can  be 
distinguished  from  the  teleological  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse, implied  in  the  popular  argument  for  God  from  some 
striking  superhuman  contrivances.  This  sort  of  proof  is 
popular  on  account  of  interesting  instances  found  in 
nature  of  adaptation  to  humanly  useful  or  beautiful  ends. 
In  its  more  philosophical  form,  it  is  recognition  of  adapta- 
tion in  the  cosmical  evolution,  in  all  the  details  and  as  a 
whole — a  natural  process  that  has  been  continuously  leading, 
on  this  planet,  towards  the  evolution  of  Man,  with  his 
spiritual  endowments.  For  the  universe  in  which  we  find 
ourselves  does  seem  to  be  a  universe  which,  at  least  as  il- 
lustrated by  this  planet  of  ours,  has  been  slowly  making 
for  the  gradual  development  of  persons,  as  its  ideal  goal. 

The  fact  that  the  natural  evolution  is  found  to  abound 
in  notable  constructions,  that  have  not  been  contrived  by 
the  intending  will  of  man,  is  probably  the  consideration 
that  finds  most  favour,  when  men  are  asked,  why  they 
believe  that  the  world  depends  on  Omnipotent  Goodness, 
instead  of  being  an  incomprehensible  accident.  Nature  is 
found  full  of  adaptations  to,  and  adaptations  in,  its  living 
organisms ;  and,  inasmuch  as  visible  adaptation  is  to 
ordinary-  common  -  sense  a  sign  of  designing  mind,  it 
seems,  if  we  are  in  the  presence  of  striking  adaptations  of 
means  to  ends,  of  which  man  is  not  the  contriver,  that  we 
must  be  living  in  the  workshop  of  a  divine  mechanist. 
The  striking  adaptations  presented  in  animal  organisms 
need  a  cause :  neither  physical  (so  -  called)  causes  nor 
human  power  are  sufficient  explanations  of  constructions 
so  useful,  or  so  beautiful,  as  many  of  those  which  emerge 
in  the  course  of  natural  evolution.  In  presence  of  this 
spectacle  we  are  invited,  as  by  Socrates  and  Cicero  and 
Paley,  to  refer  the  constructions  in  question  to  Divine 
Design.  The  curious  natural  constitution  of  the  eye,  or 
of  the  ear,  we  are  told,  is  so  adapted  to  useful  ends 
that  this  organ  cannot  be  thought  of  as  an  accident  of 
collocation  in  an  irrational  flux.  Its  curious  correlation 
of  means  and  ends  was  not  brought  about  by  a  human 
"  eye-maker,"  while  it  seems  too  elaborate  to  have  been 


OMNIPRESENT    DIVINE    ADAPTATION.  203 

the  issue  of  an  unregulated  concurrence  of  atoms.  We 
are  obliged,  by  something  in  mind,  to  refer  organs  like 
these  to  a  superhuman  eye-maker,  or  ear-maker.  Elabor- 
ate adaptation  cannot  be  conceived  as  an  uncalculated 
phenomenon. 

The  ready  popular  recognition  of  the  eye,  and  other  Explana- 
instances  of  superhuman  adaptation,  as  valid  ground  for  ^e°fc*he 
theistic  faith,  may  be  partly  explained  by  the  way  an  ceptance 
elaborate  and  useful  machine  brings  design  home  strongly  ^^teie- 
to  the  ordinary  mind.  In  a  world  full  of  useful  adapta-  conception 
tions,  one  seems  more  easily  than  in  other  ways  to  find  °^heerse 
that  God  is  working; — or  at  least  that  God  must  have 
been  once  at  work,  even  if,  now  and  during  an  indefinite 
past,  the  maintenance  of  organic  constructions,  that  at 
first  came  suddenly  ready-made  from  the  Divine  artificer, 
has  been  intrusted  to  what  are  called  "  natural "  causes. 
If  the  adaptations  are  now  natural,  they  must  have  been 
at  first  supernatural,  it  is  argued.  God  must,  at  least 
at  some  prehistoric  time,  have  "  interfered  "  to  "  create  " 
the  organ  which  "nature"  now  propagates.  God  seems 
in  this  way  to  be  speaking  to  men  out  of  the  far  past, 
even  if  He  has  left  only  "  nature "  speaking  to  them  at 
this  hour, — speaking  to  them  as  one  man  is  said  to  speak 
to  another — through  acts  that  virtually  are  a  -language, 
because  adapted  to  convey  meaning  from  mind  to  mind. 
As  a  watch  brings  vividly  before  one  the  existence  of  a 
watchmaker,  so  with  the  eye  —  so  too  with  the  whole 
human  body,  and  the  adaptations  which  adjust  organs  to 
environments,  individual  minds  of  men  to  the  universe 
in  which  they  awake  into  conscious  life.  These  and  like 
instances  of  superhuman  contrivance  are  found  to  quicken 
human  sympathy  with  the  Power  that  must  have  been 
at  work  before  all  this  could  have  become  what  it  now 
naturally  continues  to  be.  One  is  ready,  when  his 
attention  is  emphatically  called  to  abounding  examples 
of  useful  or  beautiful  adaptation,  to  feel  as  if  God  were 
no  merely  abstract  Being,  inferred  through  metaphysical 
reasoning  or  speculation ;  but  as  if  He  were  a  living  Person, 
whose  intelligent  activity  is  as  distinct  as  the  past 
intelligent  activity  of  a  watchmaker  is  manifest,  in  and 


204  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

through  a  watch,  or  as  the  inventive  power  of  an  artist  is 
revealed,  in  and  through  the  picture  of  which  his  design 
must  have  been  the  source.  In  contemplating  the  super- 
human means  and  ends  in  nature,  I  seem  to  trace  this 
invisible  Power — working  consciously — calculating — mak- 
ing use  of  materials  that  possess  latent  capacities  for  being- 
made  useful  to  men  or  other  animated  beings.  The 
chaotic  materials,  in  virtue  of  inherent  powers — tacitly, 
but  without  proof,  attributed  to  them — are  supposed  to 
admit  of  adaptations,  and  so  help  to  bring  about  the  ends 
which  we  now  admire  and  benefit  by  in  the  course  of 
nature.  Thus,  in  the  examples  of  well-calculated  contriv- 
ance which  the  great  machine  the  physical  universe 
presents,  and  also  in  the  existence  of  the  great  machine 
itself,  an  observer  seems  to  find  relics  of  a  Great  Mechan- 
ist;— with  as  much  assurance  that  He  was  intelligent  as 
he  has  of  the  intelligence  of  the  contriver  to  whom  he 
spontaneously  refers  the  adaptations  in  his  watch. 
Natural  Perhaps  it  is   objected  that  I   cannot  see  this  Divine 

adaptations  Contriver    of    the    adaptations    which    I    thus    explain. 
visible  in     It  may  be  replied,  that  neither  do  I  ever  really  see  the 
the  same      human  contrivers   of  constructions  which  I  attribute   to 
coMtruc-6  human  purpose — at  least,  if  the  human  contriver  means 
tionsofa     niore  than  the  body  of  a  human  being.     But  all  recognise 
artist  make  that  the  visibly  moved  human  organism  is  charged  with 
the  artist     invisible  intelligent  purposes,  so  that  the  visible  organism 
is  not  merely  an  unconscious  automaton.     Still  the  con- 
scious intention  of  the  human  artificer  is  as  invisible  as 
the  Divine  intending  purpose  is  in  natural  constructions. 
The  private  conscious  activity  of  persons  is  necessarily 
outside  the  consciousness  of  all,  except  the  one  person 
whose  living  consciousness  it  is. 
Adapta-  Another  circumstance,  less  obvious  than  the  mere  fact 

tion  of  the    0f    adaptation,    probably    contributes    to    make    natural 
Man.  adaptations     touch    the     popular     imagination    forcibly, 

awakening  the  idea  of  a  Divine  Designer.  For  the 
adaptations  seem  to  converge  emphatically  upon  Man. 
Withdraw  men  and  sentient  animals  for  ever  from  the 
world,  and  what  need  for  useful  or  beautiful  adapta- 
tion ?     The  physical  universe   evolves  in  ways  many  of 


OMNIPRESENT    DIVINE    ADAPTATION.  205 

which  adapt  its  natural  sequences  to  animal  life,  hut  above 
all  to  human  life.  The  enormous  amount  of  natural  waste 
that  goes  on,  the  numerous  natural  malformations,  above 
all  the  appalling  human  and  animal  suffering  mixed  up 
with  the  cosmical  evolution,  may  seem  to  contradict  this. 
Of  that  afterwards.  But  these  lurid  facts  do  not  strip 
the  natural  evolution,  in  its  beneficial  adaptations,  of  its 
necessary  relation  to  beings  that  are  sentient,  above  all 
to  rational  agents.  It  may  be  granted  that  concentration 
of  natural  adaptations  upon  man  is  only  what  appears 
at  man's  limited  point  of  view ;  certainly  it  need  not 
exclude  innumerable  ends  higher  than  those  which  make 
for  man.  But  it  is  as  obvious  adaptations  to  man  at  least 
that  the  arrangements  attract  human  beings. 

Something  more  than  can  be  discovered  by  the  scientific  David 
understanding  seems  to  touch  man  in  his  contemplation  ^JJJjJ. 
of    a   universe  which,  at   least   in   his   planetary   home,  iedgmeut 
abounds   in   adaptations  to  the   character   of   its  inhab-  ofthere: 

mi  -.  •        •  1  1        •  1  llglOUS   Slg- 

ltants.  The  divine  revelation  presented  m  superhuman  nificance  of 
constructions  and  contrivances  is  recognised  by  the  most  adapta- 
sceptical  —  in  certain  moods.  "  The  whole  chorus  of  Nature. 
nature,"  David  Hume,  in  the  person  of  Cleanthes,  em- 
phatically acknowledges, — "  the  whole  chorus  of  nature 
raises  a  hymn  in  praise  of  its  Creator.  You  alone," 
he  remonstrates  with  Philo,  "or  you  almost  alone,  dis- 
turb the  general  harmony.  You  start  abstruse  doubts, 
cavils,  objections ;  you  ask  me  what  is  the  cause  of  this 
supposed  intelligent  designing  Cause  ?  I  answer  that  I 
know  not,  I  care  not ;  that  concerns  not  me.  /  have 
found  a  Deity;  and  here  I  choose  to  stop  my  inquiry  into 
causes.  Let  those  go  farther  who  are  wiser  and  more 
enterprising."  In  these  words,  nevertheless,  Hume  puts 
only  an  arbitrary  arrest  upon  regressive  causal  questioning 
— in  lack  of  the  moral  arrest  that  we  have  found  tacitly 
presupposed  in  the  fundamental  moral  postulate  of  all 
human  experience.  This  reason  for  arrest  was  outside  the 
range  of  his  vision  and  philosophy,  finally  determined  as 
that  was  by  a  mechanical  conception  of  "  natural  causes  " 
— causes  that,  unlike  volitions,  need  to  be  themselves  caused 
by  what  is  external  to  themselves.     Physical  observation, 


206  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

rather  than  moral  implicates  or  spiritual  insight,  is  the 
basis  of  Hume's  reasoning,  in  his  '  History  of  Eeligion,'— 
when  he  concludes  that  "  the  whole  frame  of  nature  be- 
speaks an  intelligent  Author,"  and  that  "  no  rational  in- 
quirer can,  after  serious  reflection,  suspend  his  belief  for  a 
moment  with  regard  to  the  primary  principles  of  genuine 
theism  and  religion."  Moreover,  this  "genuine  theism," 
on  Hume's  premisses,  is  only  the  attenuated  theism 
which  infers,  from  some  observed  cosmical  adaptations, 
the  past  operation  of  "an  intelligent  cause"  of  those 
adaptations — while  left  in  doubt  about  omnipotent  and 
omnipresent  goodness.  Granting  the  relevancy  of  the 
human  analogy,  he  might  say,  an  intelligence  other 
than  human  seems  to  have  been — at  some  past  time — 
at  work  in  Nature.  But  as  to  the  good  or  bad  character 
of  this  intelligent  antecedent,  or  the  extent  of  his 
power,  the  empirical  data  leave  him  unable  to  determine 
anything:  perfect  reason  and  perfect  goodness  would  be 
in  excess  of  the  only  premisses  which  his  philosophy 
allowed  him  to  use.  And  thus  his  so-called  "god"  is 
only  one  intelligent,  but  perhaps  deceiving  or  even  ma- 
lionant,  agent,  added  to  the  agents  we  are  accustomed 
to  find  in  our  experience  of  human  contrivers.  He  offers 
us  a  god  that  still  needs  God. 

The  argument  for  God  that  is  grounded  on  certain 
striking  adaptations— long  favoured  in  popular  theology, 
roughly   handled    by    Spinoza,    criticised    by    Kant,    dis- 


proof of 

divine 
adaptation 

based  only  credited   by  some  speculative  naturalists  of  this  genera- 
lapta-    g  tion  —  is    in    danger    of    losing    the    value    that    really 


on  striking 


tions,  in-  belongs  to  it,  as  a  rational  auxiliary  to  the  theistic  inter- 
adeqnate.  preta|-on  whicn  we  are  led  to  put  upon  the  universe  by 
the  inevitable  moral  implicates  of  human  experience. 
Presuppose  perfect  moral  reason  or  goodness,  as  what  is 
always  and  everywhere  active  at  the  heart  of  existence ; 
then,  with  this  inevitable  metaphysical  foundation  of 
human  experience,  signal  instances  of  adaptation  to  man 
that  present  themselves  bring  vividly  home  the  concep- 
tion of  Divine  intending  mind  at  the  root  of  all;  not- 
withstanding  the    mixture    of    malconstruction,    misery, 


OMNIPRESENT    DIVINE    ADAPTATION.  207 

and  sin  in  which  this  planet  abounds.  But  to  infer 
the  omnipresence  of  perfect  wisdom,  and  merciful  love, 
solely  from  striking  specimens  of  fitness  that  occur 
in  our  observation  of  the  external  world,  is  to  beg  a 
conclusion  unduly  assumed  —  not  one  logically  gath- 
ered. The  divine  conclusion  is  infinitely  in  excess  of 
the  finite  premisses :  the  largest  collection  of  super- 
human constructions  can  yield  only  a  more  or  less  prob- 
able finite  inference :  the  finite  can  never  be  logically 
transformed  into  the  infinite.  The  observed  data  per- 
haps suggest  some  intelligent  contriver  of  the  observed 
contrivances,  analogous  to  the  mind  supposed  in  the 
human  contriver  of  a  machine,  but  wanting  in  the 
unique  infinity  or  absoluteness  that  is  Divine. 

Other  defects  in  the  supposed  deduction  of  the  Divine  The  argu- 
Designer,   from   occasional   striking  instances   of  contriv-  jJ^JJJ,8^11118 
auce    in    nature,    suggest    themselves,    if    the    observed  God  author 
facts  are  presented  to  prove  the  infinite  conclusion,  and  oit£^~ 
not  merely  to  awaken   the  infinite  postulate — or  other-  order  that 
wise  to  awaken  our  latent  faith  and  hope  in  God,  as  the  l?^m^7-, 
primary  necessity  in  any  intercourse  with  the  universe,  skill  in 
How,  one  may  ask,  can  the  analogy  of  a  human  artist  and  pvercom- 
his  work  apply  at  all  to  the  divine  artist,  whose  power  is  "' 
supposed  to  be  boundless,  and  who  must  therefore  be  the 
Agent  responsible  for  the  materials  which,  in   the   rela- 
tion of  Designer,  he  is  alleged  to  have  adapted,  with  more 
or  less  difficulty,  to  his  ends  ?     Why  should  adaptation  of 
resisting  material  be  part  of  the  work  of  the  Power,  on 
which  the  material,  with  all  its  qualities  or  modes  of  be- 
haviour, must,  on  the  divine  interpretation,  finally  depend  ? 
This  looks  like  supposing  God  to  cause  a  difficulty,  only 
in    order   that   He  may  afterwards  show   His  skill   and 
strength  in  its  removal. 

Again.      The  introduction  of   a   Divine   Designer   has  And  to 
been  reclaimed  against,  as  "  interference  "  with  the  pro-  S^^rfa]5- 
vince  which  science  must  keep  secure  for  natural  evolu-  ity  of 
tion   only  —  which,  because   natural,  is   dogmatically  as-  T&t^onal 
sumed  to  be  undivine.     Natural  uncalculating  evolution 
must  receive,  we  are  told,  all  the  glory  of  the  useful  and 
beautiful  contrivances  by  which  the  inorganic  world  and  its 


208 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Natural 
Causation 
may  ex- 
press 
Divine 
Design. 


organisms  contribute  to  the  wants  of  living  beings.  Vis- 
ible sequences  in  their  customary  evolution,  it  is  asserted, 
are  all  we  have  to  do  with,  and  it  is  worse  than  superfluous 
to  invest  them  with  purpose.  Even  although  some  natural 
effects  involve  adaptations  which,  if  their  antecedent  could 
have  been  a  human  hand,  we  might  refer  to  the  hand 
as  their  cause,  nevertheless  experience  of  natural  evolution 
shows  that,  in  the  absence  of  the  human  hand,  physical 
causes  spontaneously,  under  natural  law,  transform  them- 
selves by  slow  degrees  into  those  useful  and  beautiful 
mechanisms  which,  in  their  former  ignorance,  men  referred 
to  the  "  interference "  of  God.  Our  own  experience  of 
what  nature — without  capricious  and  unscientific  divine 
interference — does  gradually  transform  itself  into,  demon- 
strates that  supernatural  interposition  is  superfluous. 
Natural  evolution  is  found,  in  fact,  to  issue  in  what  we 
call  contrivance ;  but  the  contrivances  are  seen  to  be 
issues  of  wholly  natural  antecedent  conditions,  which 
need  no  conscious  design  or  predestination.  To  assume 
arbitrarily  "the  intervention  of  a  designing  force"  is  to 
withdraw  attention  from  what  alone  is  of  practical  im- 
portance in  man's  intercourse  with  what  is  around  him — 
to  wit,  visible  causes,  which  men  are  able  in  some  degree 
to  adapt  as  means  to  desirable  ends.  Visible  causes  are 
the  only  causes  on  which  our  organic  pleasures  and  pains 
depend.  Man,  it  is  alleged,  has  nothing  to  do  with  a 
Universal  Power,  about  which  natural  science  can  say 
nothing,  because  it  is  outside  sensuous  experience. 

A  recent  criticism  of  Lord  Salisbury's  British  Associa- 
tion address  illustrates  this.  It  was  made  by  Dr  Weis- 
mann,  the  eminent  naturalist.  It  contains  the  following- 
remarkable  sentence  :  —  "  The  scientific  man  may  not 
assume  the  existence  of  a  designing  force,  as  Lord  Salis- 
bury suggests ;  for  by  so  doing  he  would  surrender  the 
presupposition  of  his  research — the  comprehensibility  of 
nature."  Now,  by  the  "  comprehensibility  of  nature," 
I  suppose  Dr  Weismann  means,  the  "presupposition" 
that  changes  in  nature  must  be  in  all  cases  the  issue  or 
metamorphosis  of  ascertainable  natural  causes,  whatever 
else  they  may  be,  or  may  imply ;  so  that  the  particular 


OMNIPRESENT    DIVINE    ADAPTATION.  209 

sorts  of  natural  causes  on  which  the  different  kinds  of 
physical  facts  and  events  depend,  and  not  the  origin  of 
the  Whole,  is  all  that  physical  science  has  to  do  with. 
The  physical  comprehcnsibility  of  nature  is,  in  short,  the 
postulate  and  motive  of  natural  science;  in  obedience  to 
which  it  persists  in  inquiring  only  for  the  visible  and 
tangible  conditions  of  changes.  But  that  this  "compre- 
hensibility  of  nature,"  so  understood,  should  bar  out  the 
religious  conception  of  nature  as  also  divine  adapta- 
tion of  means  to  ends — useful  or  beautiful  ends — looks 
like  saying  that  the  world  must  be  finally  undivine,  in 
order  that  it  may  be  scientifically  comprehended.  That 
Active  Eeason,  as  "  designing  force,"  should  "  necessarily 
contradict,"  or  "  interfere  with,"  the  scientific  presup- 
position of  fixed  natural  order,  is  itself  a  prejudice,  the 
groundlessness  of  which  I  have  already  suggested.  The 
scientific  "  comprehensibility  "  of  nature,  instead  of  being 
inconsistent  with  the  omnipresence  of  divine  adaptation, 
is  really  only  one  way  of  expressing  it  as  a  practical  fact. 
To  show  that  an  event  is  the  new  form  of  some  physical 
antecedent  is  not,  properly  speaking,  to  show  its  origin : 
it  only  makes  us  ask  further,  What  invests  its  antecedent 
with  this  natural  "  power  "  ?  Does  not  this  question  at 
last  throw  us  back  upon  intending  will,  or  moral  agency,  as 
the  only  originating  power  that  man  encounters,  involved 
as  he  finds  it  in  his  own  moral  experience  ?  May  not 
the  sort  of  causation  for  which  a  finite  personal  agent  is 
responsible  be  taken  as,  for  man,  sufficiently  typical  of  the 
Universal  Power ;  and  may  not  that  Power  be  supposed 
able  to  act  even  without  the  visible  conditions  which  alone 
concern  the  physical  inquirer  ?  If  all  natural  causation 
may  at  last  be  reasonably  this,  then  discovery  of  a  natural 
cause — which  is  thus  only  the  divinely  constituted  sign  of 
an  approaching  event — is  no  disproof  of  the  event  being 
part  of  the  cosmical  revelation  of  divine  intending  Will. 
This  thought  indeed  seems  to  be  dimly  present  to  Dr 
Weismann  himself,  when  he  adds  that  "  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  our  conceiving  (if  conception  be  the  right  word 
to  use  in  such  a  context)  of  a  Creator  as  lying  behind  or 
within    the    forces  of   Nature,  and   being  their  ultimate 

o 


210  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

cause."  Yet  throughout  his  remarks,  the  ambiguous 
word  "  force,"  in  its  unanalysed  physical  application, 
obscures  his  meaning;  which  had  already  been  confused 
by  the  dogma  that  "  divine  design  "  is  necessarily  "  inter- 
ference "  with  order  in  nature ;  or  an  "  intervention  to 
supplement  the  forces  of  Nature  just  where  they  break 
down."  It  cannot  be  "interference"  or  "superfluous 
intervention,"  if  intending  Will  is  the  only  originating 
cause — constant  sequence  being  the  divinely  ordered,  and 
therefore  physically  interpretable,  effect. 
Adapts  Further.      Adaptations    seem   in    fact    to    be    slowly 

oninS  radu-  ev°lved,  according   to    natural  laws,  in  a  progress    that 
ally  evolve,  often  looks  likes  regress;  but  notwithstanding  this  they 
according     may  ^g  a  natural  revelation  of  God.     If  morally  intending 
law,  and      power  is  the  only  power  to  which  man  can  refer  change; 
yet !??         and  if  constant  activity  of  this  power  is  an  implicate  of 
tions  of       faith  in  natural  order,  it  follows  that  growth  or  evolution, 
continuous  not  off-hand  production,  is  the  true  analogy  to  the  mani- 
agency.        testation  of  God  that  is  presented  in  persistent  creation 
by  evolution.      Providential  evolution  —  including  occa- 
sional crises  of  natural  disintegration — in  an  essentially 
supernatural  process,  issuing  from  an  unbeginning  past, 
with  its  outcome  in  an  unending  future, — this  rather  than 
sudden  divine  interference  with  the  divine  continuity  of 
events,  becomes  the  theistic  conception  of  universal  con- 
trivance in   nature,  under   the   dynamical   conception   of 
the  physical  universe.     Creation  becomes  Universal  Pro- 
vidence, or  divinely  adapted  nature.     Evolution  or  meta- 
morphosis is  both  natural  and  divine, — the  visible  growth 
as  it  were  of  the  universal  organism,  in  which  human 
organisms,  naturally  yet  supernaturally,   live  and  move 
and  have  their  being.     A  universe  charged  throughout,  in 
each  and  all  of  its  parts,  with  natural  adaptation  may  then 
be  read  as   the  expression  of  living  and  acting  Keason, 
revealed  throughout  the  Whole.     The  striking  examples 
illustrate,  for  popular  use,  pervading  purpose  in  the  physi- 
cal drama;  they  come  home  to  the  ordinary  mind  in  the 
way  characteristic  actions  and  habits  of  a  man  strikingly 
reveal  his  inner  life. 

The  idea  of  the  physical  universe  as  not  finished  product 


OMNIPRESENT    DIVINE    ADAPTATION.  211 

but  continuous  natural  process — without  limits — in  analogy  is  the  uni- 
so  far  with  the  brief  continuous  life  of  a  plant  or  an  animal  yerse,  with 
— is  hinted  at  by  the  sceptical  Philo  in  Hume's  '  Dialogues '  saladapta"- 
as  a  more  reasonable  final  conception  of  Nature  than  that  tions>  * 
which  likens  it  to  a  machine  constructed  by  a  mechanist  growth ; 
at  a  given  time.     Yet  Philo  makes  the  tacit  assumption  and  if  so, 
that  if  cosmical  adaptations  are  in  fact  successive  out-  be  morally 
comes  of  natural  order — under  a  law  of  "natural  selec-  ordered 
tion,"  let  us  suppose — they  cannot  need  omnipresent  in-  ceived?" 
tending  mind  to  direct  them.     The  "  course  of  nature  " — 
whatever  that  means — is  credited  with  the  collocations : 
they  are  simply  a  part  of  the  customary  behaviour  of 
Nature ;  as  if  Nature's  conduct  might  ultimately  be  other 
than  divine  or  morally  trustworthy   conduct.     Take  the 
following  in  one  of  the  utterances  of  Philo  : — "  There  are 
other  parts  of  the  universe  besides  the  machines  of  human 
invention,   which   bear  a  greater  resemblance  than   this 
to  the  fabric  of  the  world,  and  which  therefore  afford  a 
better  conjecture  concerning  the  universal  origin  of  this 
system.      These  parts   are  animals  and  vegetables.     The 
world  plainly  resembles  an  animal  or  a  vegetable  more 
than  it  does  a  watch    or   a   knitting -loom.      Its   cause, 
therefore,  it  is  more  probable,  resembles  the  cause  of  the 
former  than  the  latter.    The  cause  of  the  former  is  genera- 
tion or  vegetation.     The  cause  therefore  of  the  world  we 
may  infer  to  be  something  similar  or  analogous  to  genera- 
tion or  vegetation.  ...  In  like  manner  as  a  tree  sheds  its 
seed  into  the  neighbouring  fields,  and  produces  other  trees, 
so  the  great  vegetable,  the  world,  naturally  produces  with- 
in  itself  certain  seeds,   which,  being   scattered  into   the 
surrounding  chaos,  vegetate  into  new  worlds.     Or  if,  for 
the  sake  of  variety  (for   I  see  no  other  advantage),   we 
should  suppose  the  universe  to  be  an  animal  :    a  comet 
is,  as  it  were,  the  egg  of  this  animal.     An  existing  tree 
bestows  order  and  organisation  on  the  tree  which  springs 
from  it — without  itself  knowing  the  order ;  an  animal,  in 
the  same  manner,  on  its  offspring — without  foreseeing  what 
is  done ;  and  instances  of  this  kind  are  even  more  frequent 
in  the  world  than  those  of  order  which  arise  from  conscious 
reason  and  contrivance.     To  say  that  all  this  order  or  ad- 


212  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

aptation  in  animals  and  vegetables  proceeds  ultimately 
from  design  is  begging  the  question  ;  nor  can  that  great 
point  be  ascertained  otherwise  than  by  proving  a  priori 
both  that  order  is  from  its  nature  inseparably  connected 
with  thought,  and  that  it  can  never  of  itself,  or  from 
original  unknown  principles,  belong  to  matter."  Now  if 
visible  natural  sequence  must  be  taken,  as  Philo  takes  it, 
for  our  last  word  about  the  universe,  probably  the  natural 
processes  of  vegetation  and  of  the  birth  of  animals  may 
give  a  better  final  conception  of  the  Whole  than  any 
others  suggested  by  those  natural  processes  which  come 
within  man's  experience.  But  if  all  natural  causes  must 
themselves  be  effects ;  if  our  interpretation  of  such  effects, 
as  cases  of  natural  laws,  itself  depends  upon  moral  reason 
for  the  faith  which  makes  it  possible,  and  enables  us  with 
confidence  to  put  even  physical  interpretations  upon 
changes ;  if,  moreover,  there  is  nothing  in  the  physical 
interpretability  of  events  that  is  inconsistent  with  a 
co-ordinate  theistic  interpretation  of  them ;  and  if  this 
deeper  interpretation  of  their  natural  modes  of  behaviour, 
adaptations,  or  constructions,  is  required  to  meet  man's 
genuine  spiritual  needs  —  if  all  this  be  so,  why  should 
natural  causation,  when  some  of  its  elaborate  construc- 
tions are  ascertained  by  inquiry,  be  regarded  as  so  far 
necessarily  empty  of  God  ?  Why  must  I  assume  that 
each  fresh  discovery  of  what  is  called  a  natural  con- 
trivance is  a  discovery  that  relieves  the  natural  effect 
of  connection  with  Omnipotent  Goodness  ? 
Eternal  It   is    the   overwhelming   idea   of    the   infinity   of   the 

evolution     universe,  when  it  arises  in  a  physically  scientific  habit 
universe,     of  thought,  that  seems  to  oppress  Philo  and   those  who 
taken  seep-  like    him    think    only    physically,    with    what,    if    they 
paralyses     think  things  out,  becomes  a  despairing  sense  of  the  total 
faith  in       uninterpretability   of  experience,  —  its    uninterpretability 
design.        even  UP  to  tne  extent  to  which  physical  observers  pro- 
fess to  read  it  into   natural  science.      Philo   takes  hold 
of  the   Infinite   by  its  agnostic  handle ;    and  so,  instead 
of  its   mystery  quickening  reverential  faith,  the   infinity 
seems    to    disintegrate   experience.      The    incomprehensi- 
bility of  physical  experience,  with  its  final  negations  in 


OMNIPRESENT    DIVINE    ADAPTATION.  213 

the  Boundlessness  and  Endlessness  into  which  the  natural 
sequences  refund  themselves,  are  allowed  to  paralyse  re- 
ligious faith  in  the  supremacy  of  Omnipotent  Goodness. 
With  the  loss  of  the  primary  moral  postulate  of  experi- 
ence, the  mysteries  of  the  infinite  in  quantity — in  space, 
in  duration,  and  in  physical  causality  —  dissolve  the 
divine  analogy  between  cosmical  adaptation  and  the 
adaptations  which  we  are  accustomed  to  refer  to  human 
contrivers.  But  this  disintegrative  sense  of  infinity,  if 
the  sceptic  were  consistent,  would  not  cease  to  operate 
when  he  contemplates  the  contrivances  of  men.  The 
persons  who  surround  us,  notwithstanding  the  signs  of 
design  presented  in  their  organic  history,  may  also,  like 
the  supposed  universe,  be  only  automatons :  no  man  can 
make  part  of  his  own  consciousness  the  invisible  purpose 
which  he  attributes  to  a  visible  companion.  The  dark 
shadow  of  infinite  mystery  not  only  destroys  the  analogy 
so  far  as  to  forbid  the  theistic  interpretation  of  our  curi- 
ously adapted  world ;  it  not  less  forbids  reference  of  the 
visible  adaptation  in  a  watch  to  the  conscious  design 
of  a  human  watchmaker.  More  than  this,  it  forbids  all 
interpretation  of  all  natural  phenomena ;  because  it  im- 
plies that  the  universe,  on  account  of  its  infinity,  is  too 
unique  for  us  to  make  any  affirmations  about  any  of  its 
events.  It  has  lost  its  divine  synthetic  principle,  and 
become  a  succession  of  meaningless  appearances. 

Conscious  design   in    another   person   is   invisible  and  Design 
inferred.     I  see  the  material  constructions,  and  I  see  the  [{^^ha 
movements  in    a    human   organism   that    naturally   lead  material 
to    the  product ;    but  I   cannot  see  or   feel   the   mental  mtdmm- 
activity  that  I  suppose  in  their  cause,  and  which,  in  the 
case  of  living  human  organisms,   I  refer  to  a  conscious 
agency  that  is  human,  and  essentially  like  my  own.     We 
are    more   at   a  loss  how  to  represent  to   ourselves   the 
invisible  processes  experienced  by  other  animals  on  this 
planet,  in  their  seeming  adaptations  of  means  to  ends  and 
works  of  art — bees  in  their  mathematically  regulated  con- 
structions, ants  in  their  organised  commonwealth,  or  dogs 
in  an  intelligent  kindness  that  often  seems  to  rival  that 
of  man.     Yet  when  I  find  in  them  too  signs  of  calculation 


214  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

resembling  those  which  give  expression  to  states  of  con- 
scious life  in  myself,  something  in  me  makes  me  regard 
this  as  significant  of  a  living  intelligence  other  than  my 
own.  In  all  cases  orderly  adaptation  of  means  to  ends — 
whether  presented  in  human  organisms  and  their  move- 
ments, in  the  organisms  and  movements  of  animals,  or 
in  the  universal  evolution — obliges  men  to  treat  the  mani- 
festations of  adaptation  as  a  revelation  of  design.  When 
overt  actions  which  involve  skill  are  performed  through 
our  organs,  as  they  often  are,  without  our  own  conscious 
agency,  we  are  obliged  to  refer  them  to  another  intending 
intelligence.  Is  not  Nature  the  providential  working  of 
Omnipresent  Mind  ? 
We  may  The  presence  of  adaptation  in  the  passive  evolutions  of 

recognise     nature  may  be  affirmed,  although  we  are  unable  to  enter 
without       in  imaginative  thought  into  the  conscious  life  of  the  pro- 
being  able    ductive  Power.     Although  the  universe,  as  related  to  us, 
hend™uiiy   manifests  sufficiently  comprehensible  examples  of  means 
the  adapt-    adapted  to  human  comfort,  it  would  be  presumptuous  to 
infer  from  this  that  the  Intelligence  manifested  in  the 
production   of  those  natural  adaptations  must   calculate 
as  men    do.     We   cannot   enter  in   imaginative  thought 
even  into  the  mental  state  of  those  beings  we  call  "  in- 
ferior "  animals,  who  are  so  great  a  mystery  to  us :  we  are 
infinitely  less  able  in  the  case  of  the  Universal  Designer. 
Yet  man  sees  in  natural  adaptations  what  he  may  with 
moral  confidence  proceed  upon,  as  signs  of  what  he  can 
treat  only  as   consciously  calculating  mind; — still  with- 
out power  to  realise  adequately  what,  for  want  of  more 
expressive  language,  he  calls  "  Infinite  Mind." 

Natural  I  have  so  far  distinguished  adaptation  in  nature  from 

law  itself     order  ln  nature.     Yet,  looked  at  more  deeply,  not  only 

adaptation   do  faith  in  omnipresent  physical  law,  and  faith  in  omni- 

of  nature     present  adaptation,  rise  out  of  the  constitution  of  man 

preting  in-  in  the  universe,  but  the  two  faiths  appear  to  coincide  at 

teliigence.    ]ast      For  natural  uniformity  is  adaptation  of  the  world  to 

the  service  of  man.    If  we  could  suppose  ourselves  living  in 

a  physical  chaos,  instead  of  living  in  what  faith  accepts  as 

a  physical  cosmos ;  and  if  in  this  supposed  chaos  we  could 


OMNIPRESENT    DIVINE    ADAPTATION.  215 

be  endowed  with  our  present  moral  and  religious  con- 
stitution— we  should  still,  it  would  seem,  be  obliged  to 
suppose  that  the  apparent  chaos  must  have  its  final  out- 
come in  the  cosmos  of  a  reasonable  world.  But  in  those 
circumstances,  besides  greatly  increased  strain  upon  our 
faith  in  perfect  goodness  at  the  heart  of  the  chaos,  we 
should  lose  the  educational  and  other  advantages  now 
afforded  in  a  world  so  adapted  to  us  that  we  gradually 
learn  how  to  regulate  our  conduct  in  it,  especially  as 
ministers  in  a  social  system. 

The    divine  constitution   of   physical    order,   with    its  The  pur- 
natural  evolution  in  universal  adaptations,  may  seem  a  Matter  and 
roundabout  method  for  accomplishing  what  Infinite  Power  physical 
might  be  supposed  to  provide,  without  matter,  immedi-  j^p1fn 
ately  by  miracle.     What  is  the  purpose  of  an  organism  so  relation 
curiously   constructed  as  the  eye,  one  may   ask,  if   God  to  man- 
could  make  human  spirits  able  to  experience  the  conscious 
state  called  "  seeing "  without  an  eye  ;  or  what  need  for 
the  complex  structure   of  our  bodies,  if  we  could  have 
the  whole  percipient  and  conscious  life  we  pass  through 
between  birth  and  death  as  unbodied  spirits  ?     If  those 
elaborate  constructions  are  not  needed  to  serve  the  con- 
scious life  with  which  they  are  found  connected,  how  are 
they  adaptations  ?    This  raises  questions  about  Matter  and 
its  relation  to  Spirit,  on  which  I  have  already  touched. 

The  lesson  of  this  lecture  is,  that  divine  design  is  a  Summary, 
conception  involved  in  natural  orderly  evolution,  and  that 
whether  Nature  is  contemplated  as  a  whole,  or  in  each  of 
its  organisms  and  each  of  its  events.  Divine  adaptation 
pervading  the  whole  involves  design  in  every  event  in  the 
history  of  each  individual ; — even  as  gravitation  is  illus- 
trated in  the  fall  of  the  most  insignificant  grain  of  sand. 
The  universality  of  adaptation  —  the  idea  of  intending 
moral  providence  in  all  change — seems  as  reasonable  as 
the  universality  of  gravitation,  or  of  evolution  within  their 
narrower  spheres.  Nothing  is  too  great  or  too  little  for 
natural  law :  nothing  is  too  great  or  too  little  for  provi- 
dential purpose.  Universal  Providence  is  by  implication 
special,  as  universal  gravitation  is  special :  the  very  idea 
of  natural  law  is  essentially  constructive  and  teleological. 


216 


LECTUEE   VII. 


PHILOSOPHICAL   OR   THEOLOGICAL   OMNISCIENCE. 


The  Sci- 
ence of 
Religion 
has  collect- 
ed facts 
which  sug- 
gest that 
critical 
analysis 
will  dis- 
cover 
reason 
in  theistic 
faith. 


I  have  been  trying  to  show  that  those  are  proceeding 
unreasonably,  and  therefore  unphilosophically,  who  treat 
theistic  faith,  or  the  disposition  to  put  a  finally  ethical 
and  religious  interpretation  upon  the  universe,  as  persons 
who  are  indulging  what  is  only  ignorant  sentiment — char- 
acteristic of  some  men,  and  some  races  of  men,  at  certain 
stages  in  the  evolution  of  mankind— sentiment  which  may 
try  to  take  the  form  of  thought,  but  which  to  advanced 
thought  is  transitory  fancy,  soon  to  become  an  anachronism, 
if  it  is  not  already  this  among  the  educated.     The  historic 
fact  of  the  permanence,  in  many  forms,  of  the  disposition 
to  worship  the  Universal  Power,  or  invisible  background 
of  human  life,  with  the  immense  influence  the  religious 
conception  has  in  the  development  of  man,  might  suggest 
that  theistic  faith  and  hope  in  the  Power  universally  at 
work  must  be  resolvable  into  reason,  if  it  is  not  even 
Universal  Eeason  itself  in  its  most   real  manifestation. 
The  modern  Science  of  Keligion  has  accumulated  evidence 
that  religion  is  the  potent  factor  in  history ;  although  the 
human  disposition  to  interpret  experience  in  the  light  of 
supernatural  power  is  found  to  degrade  the   interpreter, 
when  a  faith  essentially  ethical  presents  itself  as  non-moral, 
or  as  superstition.      But,  even  in  superstition^  one  can 
trace  an  ineradicable  dissatisfaction  with  what  is  merely 
finite,  and  sometimes  a  sense   of   dutiful  conformity  to 
ennobling  ideals.     And  in  all  this  theism  appears  in  germ. 
Ancestor  worship,  or  priestcraft,  or  dread  of  the  unknown, 


PHILOSOPHICAL    OMNISCIENCE.  217 

may  have  been  occasions  of  its  awakening ;  the  final 
issue  of  the  rude  awakening  may  carry  within  it  its  own 
rational  justification,  when  tested  by  the  homo  mensura 
standard,  or  by  the  divinct  mensura  humanised.  In- 
dividuals do  not  themselves  see,  in  many  cases,  what 
their  disposition  to  read  the  world  religiously  means,  when 
unfolded  philosophically ;  so  they  fail  to  recognise  in 
religious  faith  the  most  rational  conception  of  the  chang- 
ing universe  that  man  can  finally  form.  Those  too  in 
whom  religious  emotion  is  strong,  are  not  on  that  account 
intellectually  awake  to  its  connection  with  the  scientific 
interpretation  of  the  world. 

The   last  three  lectures  were  meant  to  show  that  in  Thera- 
proceeding  upon  the  religious  conception  of  the  universe  theistic0 
we  are  not  only  not  contradicting  physical  science,  but  faith  so 
are     really    explaining    and    sustaining    the    physically  jj^J11^ 
scientific  interpretation  of  the  world.     For  nothing  that  causal  and 
I   find  in  reason   forbids   us  to  think   of   the   course   of  tjjjjjj^J^0*1 
nature  as  finally  the  outcome  of  perfect  reasonable  Will  tions  of 
— as,  in  short,  one  of  the  modes  of  the  self-revelation  of  lts  valldity- 
God  ?     Natural  laws   are   not  disparaged  when  they  are 
not  only  believed  in,  on  the  faith  of  experiments,  but  also 
accepted   at   last,   in   moral   or   religious  faith.      Instead 
of  banishing  God,  they  are,  so  far  as  they  go,  articulate 
revelation  of   active   moral   Eeason,   or  Will  that  man's 
natural  environment  should  be  a  calculable  physical  order, 
and   not   an    incalculable   procession   of    chaotic   events. 
When  nature  is  seen  in  God,  every  fresh  discovery  of  its 
scientific  meaning  is  recognised  as   also  an   advance  in 
theology.     The  natural  evolution  of  phenomena  becomes 
in   our  thought  God's  natural,  and  therefore  reasonable, 
mode   of   acting ;   referred   to   God    because    there   is    no 
evidence  in  human   experience  of  any  other  originating 
Power  than   intending  will,  or   moral   agency.      This  is 
what  one  finds  at  the  root  of  so-called  causal  or  cosmo- 
logical  proof  of  God.      It  is  an  argument  for  faith  in 
the    religious    meaning    of    natural    order    or    law.      At 
first   the   idea   of   cause    expresses    only   a   deep  -  rooted 
human  sense  of  dissatisfaction  with  chance  change,  and 
implied    demand   for   that   by  which  this  dissatisfaction 


21 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  omni- 
presence 
of  Design 
in  Nature. 


— provisionally  relieved  by  the  natural  causes  of  science 
— may  be  finally  and  reasonably  put  to  rest.  It  seems 
to  be  true  philosophy  that  man  should  accept  the  only 
resting  sort  of  cause  that  experience  offers — that  exem- 
plified in  his  idea  of  his  own  moral  responsibility.  Its 
adoption  transforms  the  otherwise  wholly  physical  and 
unsatisfying  universe  into  what,  when  thus  more  deeply 
conceived  and  more  considerately  lived  in,  is  found  to  be 
universal  moral  order,  or  moral  providence. 

But  the  impotence  of  physical  phenomena,  abstracted 
from  the  spiritual  activity  which  they  thus  manifest,  is 
not  the  only  ground  in  reason  that  sustains  theistic  faith 
in  the  Universal  Power.  A  perception  of  the  powerless- 
ness  of  outward  things  per  se,  makes  the  percipient  ready 
to  acknowledge  Omnipotent  Goodness.  Hens  agitat  molem. 
Yet  this  is  not  all  that  the  changing  world  is  apt  to 
awaken.  There  are  more  precise  signs  of  Mind  con- 
tinually operative  in  Nature.  We  find  natural  means 
obviously  adapted  to  issue  gradually  in  useful  or  beauti- 
ful ends :  the  organised  matter  of  the  world  abounds 
in  them.  The  calculating  thought  latent  in  Nature 
becomes  more  apparent  with  each  advance  of  natural 
science ;  and  especially  since  the  modern  idea  of  organic 
evolution  has  formulated  scientific  interpretation.  For 
what,  at  our  human  point  of  view,  is  called  Divine 
Design,  is  recognisable,  not  only  in  striking  instances 
of  natural  adaptation,  like  those  on  which  Paley  dwells, 
but  in  the  very  notion  of  progressive  orderly  evolution. 
Isolated  examples,  singled  out  by  old-fashioned  theologians, 
as  proofs  of  the  interference  of  a  calculating  and  contriving 
Power,  are  now  scientifically  explained  as  gradual  processes, 
in  terms  of  natural  law.  The  human  body  and  its  organs 
may  be  accounted  for,  we  find,  by  natural  causes — causes 
long  and  slowly  operative.  And  the  whole  physical  world 
may  turn  out,  in  the  progress  of  physical  science,  to 
consist  of  slowly  formed  instances  of  natural  construc- 
tion— useful  or  beautiful  adaptations  of  means  to  human 
and  other  ends, — but  all  arising  as  sequences  in  the  process 
of  natural  causation.  The  visible  machine  of  Nature 
seems  to  be  continually  shedding  constructions  and  adap- 


PHILOSOPHICAL    OMNISCIENCE.  219 

tations,  evolved  according  to  what  is  called  "  natural  selec- 
tion," or  in  other  natural  modes  of  behaviour.  But  the 
ambiguous  Power  called  Nature  is  only  metaphorically 
"  doing  "  this,  or  doing  anything.  Its  phenomena  present 
no  proof  of  their  originating  agency ;  we  find  in  man'only 
power  that  must  be  hyperphysical,  because  man  is  able  to 
be  moral  or  immoral.  The  great  natural  machine  is  charged 
with  divine  activity,  and  all  its  evolutions  admit  of  a 
teleological  as  well  as  a  physical  interpretation.  Natural 
causes  explain,  sufficiently  for  sense  and  scientific  under- 
standing, the  visible  organisation  of  man,  as  well  as  his 
special  organs,  such  as  the  eye  or  the  ear.  But  this  physic- 
ally scientific  explanation  is  always  only  provisional  ex- 
planation. The  world  may  also  be  conceived  as  the  design 
of  what,  at  the  human  point  of  view,  may  be  called  perfect 
intending  Will ;  so  that  constant  rational  providence  may, 
at  the  end,  be  credited  with  the  adaptations  that  are  gradu- 
ally elaborating  in  every  particular  of  the  natural  outcome. 
On  the  supposition  that  scientific  inquiry  verifies  the  law 
of  universal  natural  evolution,  science  is  only  disclosing 
natural  adaptations  that  are  in  process  of  slow  continuous 
formation — the  law  of  evolutionary  procedure  being  the 
scientific  expression  of  how  the  continuous  creation  pro- 
ceeds. The  Power  that  keeps  the  whole  in  motion  is  then 
thought  of  as  Power  that  is  eternally  making  for  useful  and 
beautiful  relations  of  means  to  ends,  in  the  virtually  living 
organism  that  is  commonly  called  Nature ; — and  in  issues 
of  gradually  increasing  value,  measured  by  the  satisfaction 
which  they  afford  to  man,  who  is  himself  the  highest  of 
the  providential  outcomes  on  this  planet.  Nature,  thus 
contemplated,  becomes  in  our  view  charged  with  Pur- 
pose, and  a  revelation  of  the  Divine,  to  which  awakened 
divinity,  latent  in  man,  responds  in  intellectual  and  moral 
sympathy.  This  is  just  to  say  that  God  is  the  real  cause 
in  all  natural  causes — those  making  either  for  the  integra- 
tion or  for  the  disintegration  of  the  present  world.  In 
either  way — integrative  or  disintegrative — nature  continu- 
ously reveals  God. 

It  is  only  when  the  final  mystery  of  the  physical  infinity  The  final 
of  Nature  is  taken  wantonly  by  its  atheistic  handle,  that  i)nysical 


220 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


mystery- 
need  not 
paralyse 
power  of 
interpret- 
ing what 
does  enter 
into  our  ex- 
perience. 


Signal 
natural 
adapta- 
tions and 
universal 
natural 
design. 


our  want  of  physical  omniscience  is  produced  as  reason 
for  refusing  to  read  experience  theistically.  For  the 
world  would  be  scientifically  uninterpretable,  if  man  were 
obliged  to  turn  away  from  all  attempts  to  explain  even 
its  physical  laws,  until  he  had  relieved  himself  of  the 
final  physical  mystery  by  rising  into  Omniscience.  I 
cannot  move  locally  from  where  I  stand,  if  I  am  bound, 
before  I  do  so,  to  have  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  universe, 
and  to  be  in  this  way  independent  of  final  faith-ven- 
ture. And  the  faith  that  the  orderly  evolution  of  nature 
is  a  history  of  Purpose,  may  be  confirmed  by  observation 
of  natural  means  in  remarkable  relations  to  animal  ends. 

When  particular  natural  constructions,  like  the  eye  in 
man,  or  wings  in  a  bird,  are  appealed  to  as  signs  that 
intelligent  agency  must  have  been  at  work  in  overcoming 
the  resistance  of  intractable  material,  by  adroit  combina- 
tion and  collocation — like  a  human  artificer  laboriously 
making  a  machine — the  idea  of  Divine  Design  presents 
two  difficulties.  In  the  first  place,  it  represents  natural 
law,  or  qualities  of  "  matter,"  as  in  conflict  with  the 
Designer.  This  is  so,  no  doubt,  when  the  artist  is  a  man. 
But  if  God  is  vaguely  credited  with  the  natural  laws  and 
qualities  themselves,  as  imposed  by  Him  upon  Matter  in 
some  prehistoric  period  in  the  illimitable  Past,  according 
to  the  crude  idea  of  "  creation,"  this  looks  like  God 
making  a  difficulty  at  first,  for  the  pleasure  of  overcoming 
it  afterwards.  In  the  second  place,  to  ground  faith  in 
divine  design,  on  visible  adaptations  in  particular  instances, 
supposed  to  be  independent  of  physical  law,  runs  the  risk 
of  having  such  supernaturalness  discovered  to  be  after  all 
an  issue  of  a  natural  process ;  and  with  this  the  divine 
design  disappears — if  we  must  assume  that  when  a  con- 
struction is  proved  to  be  natural,  it  must  therefore  not  be 
due  to  the  Divine  Power.  But  it  is  otherwise  when 
something,  not  proved  to  be  unreasonable,  in  the  conscious 
constitution  of  man,  makes  us  see  in  all  natural  processes 
and  issues  really  divine  processes  and  issues  ;  so  that 
whenever  useful  or  beautiful  adaptations  of  means  to 
ends,  in  organic  structures  or  otherwise,  are  naturally 
evolved,  this  evolution,  however  slow  and  gradual,  is  rightly 


PHILOSOPHICAL    OMNISCIENCE.  221 

interpreted  by  man  as  an  issue  of  the  constant  action  of 
omnipresent  Deity.  External  nature  throughout  its  nat- 
ural evolution — out  of  an  original  fire-mist,  if  you  please, 
or  whatever  else  can  be  proved  scientifically  to  have  been 
its  preceding  form — is  then  one  phase  of  Divine  revelation 
— to  us  revelation  of  superhuman  design — whatever  more 
it  may  be,  under  relations  higher  than  the  human. 

In  last  two  lectures  I  invited  your  attention  to  what  Defects  in 
is  suggested  by  the  ever-changing  phenomena  presented  and^the 
in  the  physical  universe,  in  illustration   of  presupposed  teleoiogical 
confidence  in  the  perfect  reasonableness  and  goodness  of  ^JJ*£, 
the  Power  at  work  at  the  heart  of  the  Whole.     There  is  for  the 
inadequacy  in  these  causal  and  teleoiogical  considerations,  £te^£eta. 
taken  by  themselves,  although  they  are  reasonable  auxili-  tkmofthe 
aries  to  theistic  faith.     But  when  put  into  the  form  of  universe, 
arguments,  the  infinite  conclusion  is  seen  to  be  fallaci- 
ously begged  in  the  argument.     For  one  thing,  the  final 
appeal  in  both  is  made  to  finite  human  experience,  while 
the   conclusion  is   concerned  with  the  Universal  Power. 
This,  some  accordingly  assume,  can  be  legitimate  only  if 
Divine  Consciousness  somehow  enters  into  man,  and  ele- 
vates his  individual  understanding  into  Universal  Eeason. 
How  can  the  rationality  at  the  heart  of  the  universe  be 
found   in   my  individual   intelligence?      How   can   each 
person's  private  intelligence — so  much  his  own   as   that 
no  other  person  can   be  conscious   of  it — how  can  this 
isolated  intelligence  be  the  centre  of  a  Universal  Know- 
ledge ?     I  and  all  other  persons  might  never  have  existed, 
and  yet  the  rationality  of  the  universe  would  remain  ;  at 
least  if  "knowledge"  is  real,  and  the  physical  universe 
trustworthy  and  interpretable  ?     If  theism  is  valid,  must 
not  an  element  be  wanting,  in  this  human  or  relative  inter- 
pretation of  natural  causation,  and  teleoiogical  conception 
of  the  universe  ? 

Is  not  the 

What  has  been  called  "ontological  proof"  of  the  in-  conception 
separability  of  Thought  and  Peality  is  sometimes  brought  "j^k*1*8 
forward  as  an  absolute  foundation.     The  idea  of  uncon-  J,',1  pxt/e  l 
ditional  need  for  Eternal  Mind,  the  abstract  impossibility  reason? 


222 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Various 
phases  of 
this  onto- 
logically 
necessary 
theism. 


of  reality  in  the  absence  of  thought,  the  contradiction 
implied  in  the  supposition  of  the  universe  existing  with- 
out Mind,  is  a  principle  which  has  taken  different  forms  in 
theological  and  philosophical  speculation.  Ought  it  to  be 
accepted  as  the  basis  of  theism  ?  Is  Infinite  Mind  the 
rationally  necessary  presupposition  of  any  possible  reality  ? 
From  Plato  to  Hegel,  the  abstract  necessity  for  Universal 
Eeason  is  a  principle  that  has  in  different  forms  per- 
vaded philosophy.  Through  this  necessity,  the  indi- 
vidual thinker  essayed  to  secure  for  himself  a  more 
commanding  position  than  the  individual  consciousness  of 
a  human  mind  seemed  to  supply.  It  is  argued  that 
one's  intellectual  hold  of  the  universe  cannot  be  depend- 
ent on  one's  own,  lately  born,  isolated  self.  For  a  human 
being  to  attain  intellectual  possession  of  reality,  he  must 
somehow  become  involved  in  a  higher  Eeason  than  his 
individual  reason :  he  finds  himself  more  than  an  orphan 
spirit  or  spiritual  atom :  he  must  therefore  be  somehow 
identified  with  the  Universal  Eeason.  So  regarded,  my 
true  self  is  found,  in  proportion  as  it  unfolds,  to  be  Uni- 
versal Consciousness :  what  is  called  reason  in  me  finds 
justification  in  the  discovery  that  Eeason  finally  is  not 
mine  individually,  but  mine  in  so  far  as  God  lives  in 
me.  My  self  is  truly  and  infinitely  realised  in  God  ;  and 
the  individual,  orphan,  isolated  self  is  renounced,  the 
more  the  individual  man  becomes  divine.  The  essential 
divinity  of  what  is  truly  real  is  discovered  when  we  learn 
to  rise  above  the  physical  sciences,  and  enter  into  the 
central  Philosophy  of  Being,  which  is  theology  under 
another  name  —  theology  that  deserves  the  proud  title 
of  science  of  sciences. 

A  position  akin  to  this  is,  I  think,  taken  in  the  chief 
forms  of  ontological  proof,  or  constructive  necessity  for 
God.  I  have  described  it  perhaps  more  according  to  the 
manner  in  which  it  appears  in  the  idealistic  thought 
of  this  generation  than  in  its  earlier  forms.  One  recog- 
nises it,  however,  in  the  Idealism  of  Plato,  where  things 
presented  to  sense  dimly  symbolise  the  full  rational  real- 
ity towards  which  individual  man  approximates,  as  he 
rises     from     contingent     appearances,    and     fluctuating 


PHILOSOPHICAL    OMNISCIENCE.  223 

opinions,  and  enters  into  the  intellectual  necessities  of 
Universal  Eeason.  That  Thought  which  transcends  each 
private  consciousness,  and  can  be  entered  into  only 
through  mystical  ecstasy,  alone  contains  the  secret  of  the 
universe,  was  the  supreme  lesson  of  Plotinus  in  later  and 
more  adventurous  Platonism.  Recognition  of  an  ab- 
stract necessity  for  Divine  or  Perfect  Being,  as  involved 
in  the  very  idea  of  perfection,  pervades  the  once  cele- 
brated theistic  reasonings  of  St  Augustine,  St  Anselm, 
and  Descartes.  Perfection  in  idea,  it  was  argued,  must 
include  existence ;  for  an  idea  cannot  be  perfect  unless 
conceived  to  be  real,  not  mere  illusion.  So  the  Divine 
Reality  is  involved  in  the  very  idea  of  absolute  perfection 
that  is  latent  in  us  all:  thought  necessarily  underlies 
existence :  universal  thought  must  underlie  universal 
reality  :  real  existence  needs  thought  to  realise  it.  These 
are  varied  expressions  of  a  principle  which  appears  at 
the  bottom  of  this  abstract  theism.  Expressed  in  crude 
form,  this  looks  like  the  childish  fallacy,  that  because  I 
fancy  that  a  thing  or  a  person  exists,  the  thing  or  person 
must  therefore  really  exist.  But  to  say  that  the  existing 
reality  implies  eternal  reason  is  very  different  from  saying 
that  men's  contingent  fancies  about  finite  things  must  all 
be  realities ;  or  from  justifying  Kant's  caricature  of  this 
theistic  proof,  as  if  it  were  equivalent  to  saying,  "  Because 
I  imagine  I  have  money  in  my  purse,  it  must  be  true  that 
I  have  it."  That  there  is  an  intellectual  necessity  for 
God  involved  in  our  ideas  of  space  and  immensity,  dura- 
tion and  eternity,  is  another  form  of  ontological  argument 
for  theism :  it  appears  in  Samuel  Clarke's  once  famous 
demonstration  that  God  exists.  And  the  religious  phil- 
osophy of  St  Anselm  and  Descartes  is  a  sort  of  antici- 
pation of  the  "esse  is  percipi"  of  Berkeley;  itself  dimly 
anticipated,  long  before  St  Anselm,  in  the  to  avrb  voelv 
re  Kal  elvac,  attributed  to  Parmenides.  That  Universal 
Mind  or  the  Infinite  is,  by  necessity,  the  prius  of 
individual  things  and  persons,  and  presupposed  in  their 
existence,  is  the  constant  refrain  in  Berkeley's  '  Siris,'  in 
which  the  inevitable  demand  for  Divine  Reason,  as  the 
finally  uniting  principle,  is  reiterated  at  different  points 


224  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

of  view.  "  Comprehending  God  and  the  creatures  in  one 
general  notion,  we  may  truly  say,"  according  to  Berkeley, 
"  that  all  things  together  make  one  Universe,  or  to  irav." 
But  if  we  should  say  "  all  things  make  one  God,"  this,  he 
thinks,  would  be  an  erroneous  notion  of  God ;  neverthe- 
less it  would  not  amount  to  Atheism,  so  long  as  Mind  or 
Intellect  was  admitted  to  be  the  Universal  Power.  It  is 
nevertheless,  he  thinks,  more  respectful,  and  consequently 
the  truer  notion  of  God,  to  suppose  Him  neither  made  up 
of  parts,  nor  to  be  Himself  a  part  of  any  Whole  whatever. 
The  intellectual  need  for  recognising  that  the  universe 
must  be  constituted  in  Universal  Eeason  is  the  chief 
lesson  of  Berkeley's  '  Siris  ' — a  book  of  pregnant  aphorisms, 
and  a  step  in  development  of  the  conception  that  divine 
synthesis  is  the  necessary  foundation  of  all  that  is  real. 
Ontological  The  recognition  by  Leibniz  of  universal  ideas,  innate  in 
necessity  the  universe,  and  in  the  human  mind  in  its  pre-estab- 
inYeibniiT  lished  harmony  with  the  universe,  contains  a  germ  of 
and  since  a  priori  theism.  Kant's  philosophical  revolution  made 
him  the  Copernicus  of  philosophy  and  theology,  in  accept- 
ing conditioned  human  thought  as,  for  man,  the  central 
and  regulative  principle  of  his  universe — instead  of  sup- 
posing thought  and  its  implicates  to  be  finally  explicable 
by  visible  causes,  as  materialistic  naturalism  dogmatically 
does.  Kant  opened  the  way  to  the  theology  or  philosophy 
of  Hegel.  If  human  experience  of  the  universe  is  real 
experience,  it  must  be  intelligible  experience :  its  intelligi- 
bility is  its  justification.  Knowledge,  even  hopeful 
desire  to  know,  presupposes  that  what  is  sought  in 
experience  must  respond  to  intelligence.  The  postu- 
late that  we  are  really  living  in  a  knowable  world, 
already  more  or  less  interpreted  by  man,  is  an  element 
in  the  rationale  of  theistic  faith:  as  we  have  seen,  it 
adapts  itself  to  theism.  External  nature  is  instinctively 
treated  by  us  all  in  the  way  a  book  is  treated  by  its 
intelligent  reader.  We  expect  to  find  meaning  in  our 
experience  :  this  expectant  trust  supposes  that  experienced 
nature  is  reasonable.  But  the  Eeason  that  is  implied  in 
intelligible  experience,  making  it  interpretable,  is  not 
merely  my  individual  or  private  thinking ;  nor  can  it  be 


Kant. 


PHILOSOPHICAL    OMNISCIENCE.  225 

only  the  private  thinking  of   any  individual  person  :   it 
must   be   Universal   Eeason.     The    universe   must   be    a 
network  of   rational  relations,  in  virtue  of  which  it  is 
capable  of  being  reduced  to  absolute  science.     Those  in- 
telligible relations  are  the  Divine  Thought  that  is  involved 
in  it — latent  at  first,  as  far  as  each  man  is  concerned,  but 
which  men  are  bringing  forth  in  the  form  of  science,  more 
and  more.     Scientific  advance,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  their 
increasing  participation  in  the  Universal  Reason :  in  pro- 
portion to  his  success  as  an  interpreter  of  nature,  man  is 
identifying  himself  more  with  the  Eeason,  which  scientific 
and  philosophic  experience  finds  presupposed  at  the  centre 
of  the  Whole.    I  begin  to  participate  in  the  divine  thought, 
when,  by  expectant  calculation,  founded  on  experience, 
I  bring  my  individual  thinking  out  of  idle  fancy,  and 
into  line   with  the  thought  latent  in  nature;   thus  sub- 
stituting reasonable  "interpretation"  of  nature  for  the 
capricious   individual   "anticipation"    of    nature,    which 
Bacon  so  emphatically  condemns.     And  so  in  all  science 
and  philosophy  one   seems  to  be  "identifying"  himself 
with  God,  or  with  divine  thought  latent  in  experience, 
which  expresses  itself  through  him  in  proportion  as  his 
thoughts  about  things  become  more  divine,  in  other  words, 
as  science  advances.     So  too  in  reading  a  book  intelli- 
gently  and  sympathetically;   the   reader   re -thinks  the 
thought  of  the  author,  participating  in  his  intellectual 
life :  the  reader  becomes  one  with  the  author ;  the  author 
enters  into  and  assimilates  the  reader.     It  is  thus  with 
man  and  God. 

Again.      Thought    or    Reason,    whether    in    this    way  Abstract 
present  in  the  human  microcosm,  or  omnipresent  in  the  T^jF1^ 
Macrocosm,  must  be  referred,  at  least  by  man,  to  some-  Mind!™8 
thing  that  is  living  and  conscious.     Man  is  instinctively 
obliged    to  personify    the    Universal    Intelligence.      The 
relations  which  an  interpretable  universe  involves,  oblige 
us  to  suppose  that  our  universe  is   united  in  living  in- 
telligence.      Universal    Thought    must    mean    Universal 
Consciousness.     So   that   scientific   intercourse    with    the 
phenomena  presented  to   us   in  our   fragmentary  human 
experience  is  taken  as  the  beginning  of  philosophic  inter- 

p 


226  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

course  with  the  Universal  Consciousness;  or,  if  another 
mode  of  expression  be  preferred,  the  beginning  of  the 
revelation  in  and  to  us  of  the  Universal  Consciousness. 
It  is  approach  on  our  part,  and  self-revelation  on  God's 
part,  which  becomes  more  full  and  articulate  with  human 
progress  in  divine  philosophy. 
Hegelian  Following  this  line  of  argument  or  speculation,  we  find 

ontoiogical  ourselVes   becoming   involved    at   last   in  something  not 
Theism'       unlike  the  dialectical  procedure  of  Hegel.     For  his  philo- 
sophy is  finally  and  throughout  theology  —  perhaps  the 
most  comprehensive  and  elaborate  theology  that  modern 
thinking  has  produced  ;  and  which,  indirectly  more  than 
by  direct  adoption,  has  been  giving   form  to  the  relig- 
ious thought  of  this  age.     Its  sympathetic  introduction  to 
the  English-speaking  world  is  largely  due  to  an  eminent 
countryman,  a  former  Gifford  Lecturer.     Dr  Hutchison 
Stirling's  '  Secret  of  Hegel,'  published  in  1865,  marks  an 
epoch  in  our  insular  philosophy,  with  corresponding  en- 
largement in  subsequent  religious  thought.     Its  appear- 
ance was  almost  contemporaneous  with  that  of  another 
memorable    book,    representative    of    the    opposite    pole 
of  philosophy,  yet  not  without   affinity  in   its   compre- 
hensiveness   to   Hegelian   theological   thought  — I   mean 
the  '  First  Principles,'  followed  by  a  '  Synthetic  Philoso- 
phy,'—which  Mr  Herbert  Spencer  has  contributed  to  the 
intellectual  life  of  his  generation.     Indeed  his  philosophy 
of  the  universe  is  a  sort  of  inverted  Hegelianism— resting 
on  an  empirical  base,  and  constructed  by  generalisation,  not 
by  necessities  of  rational  dialectic.     Its  apotheosis  is  the 
for  ever  Unknowable  Power,  at  the  extreme  opposite  to  the 
potential  if  not  actual  Omniscience  professed  by  Hegel. 
TheTheo-    '    Hegelian  dialectic  is  virtually  Hegelian  theology.     It 
logical        is  a  philosophical  Theism  which  is  bound   to   supersede 
ofHeX7  Faith  by  a  perfect  theological  Science.     Indeed  Hegel's 
interest  in  the  final  problem  seems  to  be  religious  and 
Christian  as  much  as  intellectual.      As  with  Aristotle, 
and   still  more  with  Aquinas,  theolgy  is  with  him  the 
consummation  of  philosophical  speculation,  if  not  exactly 
in  Bacon's  sense,   "the  Sabbath  and   port  of   all   man's 
labours  and  peregrinations." 


PHILOSOPHICAL    OMNISCIENCE.  227 

Hegelian  dialectic  might  be  described  as  an  exhaustive  Dialectical 
intellectual  evolution  of  what  is  put  in  a  less  articulate  Kvolutl°u« 
way  in  the  cosmological  argument  founded  on  the  need 
for  cause.  There  one  finds  rest  in  the  agency  of  God, 
or,  in  the  language  of  this  class  of  thinkers,  in  the 
Universal  Consciousness.  The  Hegelian  progressive  and 
ascending  synthesis  is  a  process  which  is  adopted  to 
show  articulately  the  inadequacy  of  each  lower  and  there- 
fore more  abstract  principle  of  thought.  It  expresses  the 
need  for  ascending  regressively  from  the  extreme  inade- 
quacy of  Abstract  Being  to  the  infinite  fulness  of  the  con- 
crete Divine  Reality — making  manifest  that  the  universe 
in  its  concreteness  necessarily  presupposes  infinite  wealth 
in  its  Divine  ground.  This  dialectical  evolution  is  not 
old-fashioned  deduction,  unfolded  in  the  way  conclusions 
in  geometry  are  drawn  out  of  axioms  and  definitions  in 
which  they  are  logically  involved ;  nor  is  it  induction  from 
facts,  in  the  way  natural  causes  are  generalised  in  physical 
science.  It  is  an  intellectual  construction  of  what  is  pre- 
supposed in  the  lower  and  more  abstract  principles  of 
thought,  purged  of  the  inadequacy  and  error  that  per- 
tains to  them  when  they  are  taken  as  ultimate.  Thus 
abstract  Being  must  be  less  adequate  to  express  the 
infinite  wealth  of  Divine  Being  than  the  higher  category 
of  change  or  Becoming :  this,  in  turn,  is  less  adequate 
than  Being  that  is  determinate ;  and  so  on,  till  God 
in  His  fulness  is  reached  in  the  infinite  thought  — - 
to  be  realised  more  and  more  fully  in  the  progressive 
conscious  intelligence  of  mankind.  This  regressive 
dialectical  ascent  promises,  at  each  stage  of  advance,  a 
fuller  conception  of  God,  till  at  last  God  is  found  by  the 
philosopher  in  the  form  of  rationally  articulated  Universal 
Consciousness,  shared  unconsciously  by  things  and  con- 
sciously by  persons.  Each  step  on  the  ascent,  on  account 
of  its  still  unsatisfying  abstractness,  craves  a  richer  or 
more  concrete  thought ;  without  this  further  development, 
the  judgment  is  left  sceptical  between  affirmation  and 
negation.  The  consequent  intellectual  unrest  is  the  move- 
ment which  carries  the  individual  mind  upward,  until 
it  finds  complete   satisfaction  in  the  universal  rational 


22; 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Questions 
suggested 
by  the 
Theism  of 
Hegel. 


articulation  or  God.  Dialectical  development  of  the 
divine  thought,  in  its  hierarchical  gradation,  is  the 
Hegelian  unfolding  of  philosophical  theism.  The  indivi- 
dual thinker,  potentially  identical  with  God,  through  the 
unconscious  presence  of  the  philosophically  articulated 
reason,  innate  in  things  and  persons,  becomes  consciously 
identified  with  God,  or  theological,  in  proportion  as  he 
comes  to  see  what  is  implied  in  having  his  being  in 
Universal  Eeason.  He  becomes  aware  of  his  participa- 
tion in  Deity,  by  translating  into  science  what  was 
otherwise  held  in  the  imperfect  form  of  feeling.  Philo- 
sophy becomes  Christian  faith  translated  in  terms  of 
thought :  the  translation  makes  explicit  the  reason  latent 
in  the  feeling — rendering  all  into  intelligible  divine  uni- 
verse. This  philosophy  would  be  religion  in  its  intellec- 
tual form,  assimilating  Christianity  as  the  one  catholic 
religion.  It  virtually  claims  to  be  religion,  so  far  as 
religion  is  intellectual  or  theological ;  not  necessarily 
to  the  exclusion  of  religion  in  the  more  practical  form 
of  feeling,  emotion,  and  faith.  And  if  theology  is  the 
intellectual  interpretation  and  co  -  ordination  of  man's 
final  relation  to  the  divine  universe  of  reality,  Hegelian 
philosophy  is  Hegelian  theology;  the  two  are  synony- 
mous. Hegelian  dialectic  becomes  theology,  or  divine 
thought  elaborated  —  sub  specie  cetemitatis,  as  Spinoza 
would  say.  It  appears  as  if  at  the  opposite  pole  to  every 
modification  of  agnosticism.  Nevertheless  the  elasticity 
of  Hegelian  thought  allows  the  extremes  unexpectedly  to 
approach  one  another. 

Is  a  philosopher  justified  by  facts  and  reason  when 
he  announces  the  discovery  of  the  perfect  rational  articu- 
lation of  the  universe  in  the  Universal  Eeason  called  God  ? 
Is  all  that  is  implied  in  the  actual  existence  of  things,  and 
above  all  in  the  moral  agency  of  persons,  relieved  of 
mystery  ?  Are  the  enigmas  which  have  put  so  severe  a 
strain  upon  faith  found  to  disappear,  by  a  complete  trans- 
lation of  theistic  faith  into  theistic  thought  —  dialecti- 
cally  unfolded  ?  Is  faith  found  to  be  exchanged  for  per- 
fect intellectual  vision,  in  an  intelligible  reconciliation  of 


PHILOSOPHICAL    OMNISCIENCE.  229 

the  universe  of  nature  and  spirit  in  God  ?  Is  this  phil- 
osophy able  to  accommodate  all  the  facts  for  which  it 
is  bound  by  its  profession  to  provide  room :  or  must  we 
all  still  bear,  in  the  form  of  moral  venture,  a  burden  of 
mystery,  which  neither  this  nor  any  other  intellectual 
interpretation  of  the  universe  that  is  comprehensible  by 
man  is  able  to  eliminate  ?  Does  Hegelian  thought  fully 
recognise  man's  experience — all  in  it  which  can  vindicate 
its  genuineness;  and  the  need  in  reason  for  recognising 
all,  shown  by  the  alternative  reductio  ad  absurdum,  in  the 
sceptical  disintegration  of  knowledge  that  follows  if  they 
are  disallowed  or  overlooked.  Does  German  philosophy 
in  and  since  Kant  adequately  measure  the  depth  of  the 
Pyrrhonism  which  it  is  bound  to  supersede  ?  When  we 
are  told  that  "  all  things  and  persons  exist  in  God,"  does 
this  mean  that  nothing  exists  or  can  exist  except  God  ? 
Does  it  mean  that  so  much  reality  in  visible  and  tangible 
things  as  is  implied  in  their  being  reliable  media  of  inter- 
course between  persons  is  illusion ;  and  also  that  faith  in 
the  originative  power  of  persons,  in  their  morally  respon- 
sible acts,  is  misleading  ?  How  can  persons  retain  their 
individual  personality,  if  their  so-called  personal  activity 
— evil  as  well  as  good — is  really  the  activity  of  God? 
Must  not  every  finite  person  be  able  to  originate  acts 
for  which  he  is  answerable — to  originate  acts,  too,  which 
ought  not  to  be  acted,  which,  therefore,  there  was  no 
necessity  in  reason  for  him  to  originate  ?  Are  all  acts 
that  enter  into  existence  divine — the  malignant  will  of 
the  murderer,  equally  with  the  philanthropic  or  saintly 
life — are  these  all  alike  acts  of  God  ? 

There  are  especially  two  mysteries  from  the  burden  of 
which  I  do  not  find  the  promised  intellectual  relief  in 
this  system  of  thought — 

(1)    I  cannot  see  in  the  dialectically  evolved   divine  Does  it 
necessity   an    explanation   of   the   existence   of   personal  solv©the 
agents,  who  must  be   blamed  for  acts  which  ought  not  Infinite 
to  exist — acts  for  which  there  is  no  rational  necessity  Persons, 
that    they    should    exist.       Are    not    all    immoral    acts  powB^and 
undivinc  ?      How   does   the   divine   dialectical    necessity  theirim- 
transform  faith  in  personal  responsibility  into  perfectly  mora  acts 


230 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Or  of  time- 
lessness, 
combined 
with  his- 
torical 
reality  ? 


Lotze. 


intelligible  science  ?  Does  it  do  more  than  cover  with  a 
new  vocabulary  what  is  still  mystery — hid  in  final  un- 
knowableness — as  distinguished  from  human  knowledge? 

(2)  Then  there  is  the  mystery  of  endless  existence,  in 
its  relation  to  measurable  time — the  alternative  of  unbe- 
ginning  and  unending  natural  succession  versus  a  timeless 
consciousness.  While  human  understanding  has  to  face 
this  mystery  of  mysteries,  how  does  the  dialectical  pro- 
cedure transform  the  faith  into  science?  Is  what  we 
call  past  or  future  really  past  or  future  ?  Is  the  natural 
evolution  which  faith  assumes  to  be  in  real  fulfilment 
gradually  in  time — is  all  this  illusion ;  so  that  whatever 
happens  must,  as  a  temporal,  be  unreal,  and  the  words 
"before"  and  "after"  symbols  of  error? 

In  relation  to  all  this  I  find  wisdom  in  words  of  perhaps 
the  most  considerate  thinker  among  later  Germans.  The 
words  suggest  the  inadequacy  of  abstract  reason  to  ex- 
plain mysteries,  which  nevertheless  it  may  enable  us  to 
co-ordinate,  but  only  in  subordination  to  the  moral  faith 
which,  I  have  tried  to  show,  is  man's  final  attitude 
to  the  universal  problem.  "The  universal  propositions, 
upon  which  human  knowledge  depends,"  says  Lotze,  "  are 
judgments  which  do  not  tell  us  that  anything  concrete 
is,  or  is  taking  place ;  they  only  declare  what  must  exist, 
or  must  take  place,  in  case  certain  imperfectly  known 
conditions  should  actually  occur:  they  merely  express 
general  rules  which  we  must  follow  in  the  intellectual 
construction  of  the  content  of  our  ideas.  On  the  con- 
trary, those  propositions  upon  which  the  special  interest 
of  religion  depends — for  example,  that  God  has  created 
the  world,  and  that  the  soul  of  man  survives  death — 
these  are  judgments  which  assert  particular  concrete  facts. 
The  first-mentioned  general  propositions  are  nothing  but 
abstract  expressions  of  forms  of  activity  according  to  which 
reason,  in  its  own  abstract  nature,  must  be  exercised.  On 
the  other  hand,  declarative  propositions  which  assert  facts 
with  respect  to  the  ordering  of  a  world  that  is  more  than 
abstract  reason,  cannot  with  equal  legitimacy  be  regarded 
as  the  innate  endowment  of  our  intelligence  only,  but  are 
in  some  sort  the  result  of  our  experience." 


PHILOSOPHICAL    OMNISCIENCE.  231 


Thus  the  rationale  of  the  religious  conception  of  the  Science 
universe  seems  to  resolve  at  last  into  the  faith  which  is  andFalth- 
incomplete  science,  sustained  by  the  spiritual  constitution 
of  man — according  to  the  homo  mensura,  or  the  divina 
mensura  humanised — as  the  only  legitimate  human  atti- 
tude in  the  end.  This  implies  an  important  question 
about  the  limiting  conditions  of  human  understanding, 
which  I  will  next  consider. 


232 


LECTURE    VIII. 


FINAL   FAITH. 


The  final     The   final   human    problem  about  the  universe   may   be 
problem      taken    as   man's  signal  object-lesson  for  illustrating  the 
verse  is  the  limit  of  his  power  to  comprehend  the  data  of  sensuous 
signal  ob-     anc[   ni0ral   experience.      Can   our   final   relation   to   the 
for  measur-  realities  be  found  through  exercise  of  understanding  only  ? 
ing  man's     Must  not  the  reasonableness  of  our  final  interpretation 
sence."        °f  life  in  the  universe  depend  on  other  resources  than 
those  provided  by  scientific  intelligence  ?     Must  not  our 
emotional  and  moral  constitution   be  at  work,  when  we 
seek  to  assure  ourselves  as  to  how  the  world  that  we 
are  living  and  having  our  being  in  is  ultimately  affected 
towards  us  ?     Is  it  possible  for  man  to  eliminate  all  in 
it  that  is  mysterious,  or  incompletely  subject  to  his  intel- 
ligence ?     Is  an  all-comprehending  vision  of  the  infinite 
reality,  in  a  wholly  unmysterious,  either  intuited  or  logic- 
ally articulated,  system,  within  reach  ?    Is  man  potentially 
omniscient,  if  not  as  yet  perhaps  with  a  full  conscious 
omniscience  in  any  case  ?     Can  his  intelligence  dispense 
with  a  necessary  remainder  of   the  incompletely  intelli- 
gible, left  for   optimist  faith   to  assimilate  ?     Is  not  the 
contrary  supposition  impossible,  unless  man  is  identified 
with   God  —  his   incarnate  consciousness  completely  one 
with  the  Universal  Consciousness  ?     If  impossible,  moral 
trust  and  hope  must  be  mans  highest  form  of  life  at  last, 
in  relation  to  what  is  completely  intelligible  only  at  the 
Divine  centre,    from  which  he  is  eternally  excluded,  as 
entrance  into  it  would  mean  deification.      Under  these 


FINAL    FAITH.  233 

conditions  reason  imposes  on  us  religious  or  reverential 
contentment  with  broken  knowledge,  which  at  last  takes 
the  form  of  active  religious  trust. 

These  questions  are  suggested    by  attempts  of  philo-  Altema- 
sophers  and  theologians  to  think  out  the  ego,  and  the  outer  SlSbei°h 
world  in  its  evolution,  as  in  God  and  so  emptied  of  mys-  faced  by  a 
terious  incompleteness.     They  promise  relief  from  the  dis-  ^1t0^!(1),1,y 
comfort  of  finite  knowledge  in  the  form  of  a  final  faith  mises  to 
necessarily  burdened  with  mysteries.    The  moral  postulate  jgjjj^jgg 
out  of  which  theism  emerges  cannot,  of  course,  admit  what  into  final 
is   self- contradictory,  or  faith  that  can  be  shown  to   be  science. 
irrational.     But  may  the  practical  faith-venture,  instead 
of  conformity  to  this  merely  negative  criterion,  be  trans- 
formed, in  a  human  mind,  into  nnmysterious  insight — 
unclouded  mental  vision — coextensive  as  it  were  with  the 
infinite  reality?     If  a  philosopher  says  that  it  can,  and 
that  this  transformation  has  actually  been  accomplished, 
let  us  make  sure  that  no  convictions  indispensable,  be- 
cause the  alternative  to  total  doubt,  are  converted  into 
illusions  in  the  process; — rejected  because  they  cannot 
be  provided  with  accommodation  in  the  science  that  is 
offered  in  exchange  for  moral  faith.     For  we  are  in  that 
case  face  to  face  with  the  alternative  of  either  rejecting 
a  philosophy  that  is  obliged  to  spoil  indispensable  root- 
convictions,  "in  order  to  embrace  them  in  its  all-compre- 
hensive  claims,   or    of    discrediting    the    convictions,   in 
order  to  save  the  philosophy   that  must  be  inadequate 
if  they  are  retained.     In  order  to  rise  wholly  out  of  the 
incomplete  knowledge  of  the  universe,  which  in  the  end 
needs  theistic  or  optimist  trust  instead  of  perfect  vision, 
shall  we   adopt  a  system  which  contains  seeds  of  total 
scepticism  ?      Should  we  not  rather   regard    the   offered 
philosophy   as   a   failure,   if    it   cannot    accept    in    their 
integrity  the  root -convictions   which  human  life  needs, 
and  "without  which   man  becomes  pessimist  and  wholly 
sceptical  •? 

It  was  partly  the  speculative  intrepidity  of  Spinoza  that,  Look,. 
at  the  end  of  the   seventeenth  century,  after  his  death,  r°j™d  t£e 
raised  the  most  humanly  significant  controversy  of  modern  question  of 
thought— that  between  final  agnosticism,  final  gnosticism,  the  ll,nlts 


234  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

of  man's  and  the  final  combination  of  agnosticism  with  gnosticism, 
knowledge.  jn  wnich  the  last  word  is  moral  faith  in  the  perfect  good- 
ness or  reasonableness  of  the  end  towards  which  all  things 
are  making ; — towards  which,  in  virtue  of  the  moral  pos- 
tulate implied  in  experience,  we  are  obliged  to  assume 
that  they  are  making.  John  Locke  was  in  this  matter 
the  earliest  spokesman  of  modern  religious  thought.  For 
it  was  he  who  deliberately  raised  the  question  of  the 
limits  of  a  human  understanding  of  the  realities :  he 
would  even  unduly  restrain  attempts  to  translate  human 
faith  into  the  divine  vision.  Locke  set  to  work  to  find 
how  far  a  human  understanding  could  go  in  knowledge. 
He  was  the  first  announced  representative  of  this  investi- 
gation. Yet  one  need  not  take  his  famous  '  Essay,'  in 
which  the  inquiry  is  only  initiated,  as  an  adequate  settle- 
ment of  our  present  question  about  the  power  of  man  as 
a  thinker  to  think  all  mystery  out  of  his  universe,  as  from 
the  Divine  Centre ;  in  a  philosophy  or  theology  which 
should  make  all  that  is  presented  fully  understood. 
Locke  only  opened  the  way  to  the  question  now  at  issue 
between  thorough  -  going  agnosticism,  thorough  -  going 
gnosticism,  and  the  conciliation  of  the  two  in  the  optimist 
faith  which  accepts  something  from  each  of  the  extremes. 
The  question  came  to  a  crisis  when  the  nineteenth  century 
was  confronted  by  one  philosophy  that  found  its  apotheosis 
in  the  Unknowable,  and  another  philosophy  which  seems 
to  claim  Infinite  Eeality  as  within  comprehension. 
The  infinite  The  philosophic  caution  that  is  characteristic  of  Locke 
"ocean  of  finds  utterance  in  sentences  in  his  'Essay,'  which  tell  of 
Being'  its  occasion  and  design.  The  '  Essay '  was  the  issue  of  the 
perplexities  in  which  human  understanding  is  involved 
when  man  tries  to  comprehend  all  mysteries.  "  This  it 
was,"  Locke  tells  us,  "  which  gave  the  first  rise  to  this 
Essay  concerning  human  understanding.  For  I  thought 
that  the  first  step  towards  satisfying  several  inquiries 
the  mind  of  man  was  very  apt  to  run  into,  was  to  take 
a  view  of  our  own  understanding,  examine  our  own 
powers,  and  see  to  what  things  they  were  adapted.  Till 
that  was  done,  I  suspected  we  began  at  the  wrong  end, 
and  in  vain  sought  for  satisfaction  in  a  quiet  and  sure 


FINAL    FAITH.  235 

possession  of  the  truths  that  most  concerned  us,  whilst  we 
let  loose  our  thought  in  the  vast  ocean  of  Being ; — as  if 
all  that  boundless  extent  were  the  natural  and  undis- 
puted possession  of  human  understanding,  wherein  there 
was  nothing  exempt  from  its  decisions  or  that  escaped  its 
comprehension.  Thus  men  extending  their  inquiries  be- 
yond their  capacities,  and  letting  their  thoughts  wander 
into  those  depths  where  they  can  find  no  sure  footing,  it 
is  no  wonder  that  they  raise  questions  and  multiply  dis- 
putes; which,  never  coming  to  any  clear  resolution,  are 
proper  only  to  increase  their  doubts,  and  to  confirm  them 
at  last  in  perfect  Scepticism."  Locke's  tone  in  this  en- 
terprise has  been  deprecated  as  an  illustration  of  the 
speculative  indifference  and  compromising  intellectual 
mediocrity  of  a  practical  Englishman.  We  are  also  told 
that  the  only  way  to  determine  the  extreme  resources 
of  man's  understanding  is  for  men  to  make  trial :  let 
us  enter  the  water,  without  first  seeking  to  find,  in  this 
abstract  way,  whether  we  are  able  to  swim  ;  let  us  per- 
sist in  trying,  in  hope  of  attaining  intellectual  vision  of 
the  infinite  universe  of  reality. 

To  show  that  human  knowledge  of  the  universe  must  Criticism 
at  last  be  left  incomplete,  or  charged  with  mysteries,  ^  ^eason 
presupposes  that  reality  is  knowable  by  men,  although  man. 
divine  omniscience  is  not  within  his  reach.  Now  the  in- 
quirer who  recognises  that  he  already  knows  something, 
may  perhaps  find  points  at  which  reason  itself  forbids 
further  approach  to  completeness,  under  the  inevitable 
human  conditions  of  thought  and  experience ; — the  point, 
for  instance,  at  which  understanding  is  arrested  by  the 
absence  of  experience ;  or  by  the  discovery  that  there 
are  indispensable  constituents  and  convictions  of  human 
nature  which  are  spoiled  when  they  are  taken  as  rendered 
in  the  professedly  all-comprehensive  philosophy.  It  may 
be  found  that  such  convictions  cannot  be  held  in  spirit- 
ual integrity  in  the  purely  intellectual  way  ;  inasmuch  as 
the  spirit  in  man — emotional  and  moral  as  well  as  intel- 
lectual— may  be  required  as  our  attitude  towards  what 
the  human  mind  can  only  in  part  realise  in  speculative 
imagination.     If  it  should  turn  out  on  inquiry  to  be  so, 


236 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


In  its  final 

outcome, 

man's 

knowledge 

of  the 

universe 

takes  the 

form  of 

morally 

reasonable 

faith. 


Reason  in 
Man  thus 
becomes 
finally  an 


what  I  called  man's  "  participation "  in  the  Universal 
Eeason  would  then  be  finally  an  act  of  trust — trust  in 
what  his  spiritual  constitution  requires  and  authorises, 
but  which  he  is  unable  to  unfold  in  a  wholly  un- 
mysterious  philosophy.  In  this  way  submission  to  what 
is  reasonable  would  at  last  bear  the  character  of  sub- 
mission to  trusted  authority.  It  would  be  the  issue  of 
the  living  action  of  the  whole  man  at  his  best,  in  response 
to  the  infinite  or  finally  divine  universe,  to  which  he 
awoke  in  dim  sense -perception  at  first.  This  is  what  I 
mean  when  I  speak  of  human  attempts  to  determine 
the  final  meaning  and  outcome  of  the  universe,  as  being, 
in  their  highest  possible  human  form,  reasonable  faith 
rather  than  completed  science.  Man,  as  Goethe  says,  is 
not  born  to  solve  scientifically  the  problem  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  rather  to  find  out  where  the  problem  begins. 

Is  not  the  otherwise  impassable  gulf  between  Omnisc- 
ience—  towards  which  advance  in  our  scientific  know- 
ledge is  no  more  an  approach  than  addition  of  finite 
spaces  is  an  approach  to  immensity,  or  addition  of  finite 
times  an  approach  to  Eternity — and  our  scientific  under- 
standing of  the  universe  thus  practically  crossed — suffici- 
ently for  human  purposes?  It  is  bridged  over  by  our 
spiritual  humanity,  in  its  rationally  authoritative,  be- 
cause indispensable,  needs — our  larger  reason,  enlarged 
in  faith  —  reason  authoritative,  as  distinguished  from 
sensuous  understanding  ?  I  call  our  final  faith  and  hope 
authoritative  reason,  so  far  as  it  is  faith  and  hope  im- 
posed by  something  in  the  mind  different  from  logical 
premisses  :  it  cannot  be  shown  directly  to  contradict  logical 
intelligence,  although  the  reality  cannot  be  adequately  re- 
presented in  scientific  imagination.  This  may  be  adapted 
for  man,  while  infinitely  insufficient.  As  distinguished 
from  complete  knowledge,  this  final  trust  accepts  the 
necessary  scientific  incompleteness  in  a  faith  which  at 
least  cannot  be  disproved,  and  which  accepts  symbol  or 
ritual  in  lack  of  the  unrealisable  in  imaginative  thought. 

Faith — trust — authority.  These  words  seem  not  un- 
fitted to  express  the  final  attitude  of  the  human  spirit  to- 
wards the  universe  in  which  we  find  ourselves.     Properly 


FINAL    FAITH.  237 

speaking,  we  know  only  what  is  completely  comprehended :  authorita- 
we  submit  in  faith  to  the  authority  of  our  spiritual  con-  J;1^1'111" 
stitution,  when  it  moves  us  to  assent  to  what  can  be  only 
symbolically  conceived.  In  this  way  reason  in  man,  it 
may  be  said,  is  at  last  authority :  for  at  last  intelli- 
gence, with  limited  experience,  is  not  logical  conclusion, 
but  spontaneous  postulate.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  optimist 
trust.  Our  final  interpretation  of  the  universe,  so  un- 
like in  many  ways  to  what  man  might  have  expected  in  a 
divine  universe,  is  the  interpretation  of  a  fragment  of  per- 
fect reason ;  or  of  perfect  love,  because  perfect  goodness. 
Working  conviction — the  object  of  which  cannot  be  fully 
translated  into  imaginable  thought — seems  to  be  the  con- 
dition under  which  man  exercises  intelligence,  or  which 
must  determine  his  finally  reasonable  attitude  towards 
the  universe  in  God.  It  is  a  crede  ut  intelligas  in  which 
intelligo  is  partly  contained  in  the  crede;  it  is  not  the 
intellige  ut  crcdas  in  which  omniscience  or  perfect  intel- 
ligence is  the  precondition  of  the  credo;  and  so  phil- 
osophers may  dispute  as  to  how  far  the  credendum  is 
intelligendum,  This  final  faith  is  implicit  knowledge,  but 
for  man  unimaginable  knowledge,  of  infinite  reality :  it  is 
the  human  equivalent  for  Omniscience.  We  live  at  last 
in  faith,  resting  on  the  "  authority  "  of  finally  incomplete 
knowledge.  We  rest  on  trusted  principles  that  are  not 
logically  proved  conclusions.     In  the  end — 

"  We  have  but  faith  :  we  cannot  know  ; 
For  knowledge  is  of  things  we  see  ; 
And  yet  we  trust  it  comes  from  Thee, 
A  beam  in  darkness  :  let  it  grow. 

Let  knowledge  grow  from  more  to  more, 

But  more  of  reverence  in  us  dwell  ; 

That  mind  and  soul,  according  well, 
May  make  one  music  as  before, 
But  vaster." 

It  seems  to  be  thus   that  man   rises  above  the   finite  Ami  leaves 
and  transitory,  while  incapable  of  complete  intellectual  J™j 
satisfaction — an  attitude  disparaged  by  those  who  resent  that 
the  limitation.     The  Universal  Power  is  unknowable  by 


238  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

know-         man,  by  physical  methods,  and  in  the  physically  scientific 
ledge."        meaning  of  the  term  knowledge.    Yet,  in  a  larger  meaning, 
this  final  faith  or  trust  is  itself  called  knowledge  ;  as  when 
St  Paul  says,  "  I  know  in  whom  I  have  believed,"  or  when 
St  John  exclaims  that  "  we  knoiv  that  we  know  Him."    The 
"  knowledge  "  that  "  God  is  love  "  is  the  inevitable  impli- 
cate of  final  faith  in  Omnipotent  Goodness. 
The  dutiful       I  seem  to  find  this  philosophy  incipient  in  those  aphor- 
obedience     isms  0f  Bacon  which  express  final  faith  in  physical  nature. 
s4ndiuj"     In  words  spoken  by  Jesus  in   Palestine,  one   finds  final 
in  Man       faith  as  the  moral  and  spiritual  attitude  towards  the  Uni- 
rationai       versal  Power.     In  the  "natura  non  nisi  parendo  yincitur," 
authority     Bacon  strikes  the  key-note  of  reverential  submission  to  an 
Ffatthal        authoritative  voice,  which  must  not  be  gainsaid,  although 
it  is  only  imperfectly  comprehensible  ;  accepted  at  last  in 
an  act  of  obedience  rather  than  of  victorious  intelligence. 
And  is  not  a  like  idea  at  the  root  of  the  declaration  that 
"if  any  man  will  do  God's  will,  he  shall  know"?     Not 
through  man  exercising  himself  as  a  thinking  being  only, 
but  through  the  response  of  the  entire  man— still  in  an 
incomplete  "  knowledge."     It  is  only  thus  that  it  is  open 
to  man  to  dispose  of  his  supreme  problem,  with  its  infinite 
intellectual  burden.     Perhaps  the  chief  profit  of  struggling 
for  the  perfect  vision  may  be  the  profound  religious  lesson 
of  its  inaccessibility. 
Keveia-  The  perfect  science  in  which  human  spirits  only  par- 

tions  of  ticipate  is  reverential  submission  even  in  the  most  phil- 
Stuai1  the  osophic  human  thought,  if  the  time-measured  consciousness 
universe  0f  finite  intelligence  and  omniscience  are  at  the  end  har- 
Jmperfectly  monised  only  in  unimaginable  thought.  And  we  must  also 
reducible  submit  to  the  mystery  of  man's  personal  power  to  create 
aUyb^1"  acts  that  ought  not  to  be  acted,  acts  inconsistent  with  Divine 
Man.  Eeason,  and  for  which  the  human  person,  not  the  Power 

at  the  heart  of  the  universe,  is  alone  responsible.  These 
two  with  other  mysteries  bar  perfect  vision.  The  burden 
of  the  first  is  not  removed  by  explaining  away  history,  and 
resolving  the  whole  at  last  into  Universal  Consciousness — 
freed  from  the  illusion  of  succession ;  nor  is  the  mystery 
of  the  other  relieved  by  disclaiming  moral  responsibility 
for   man,   and   thinking   of   persons  as  non-moral.     The 


FINAL    FAITH.  239 

reality  of  a  past  and  a  future  disappears  in  the  one  ex- 
planation, so  that  the  words  "  before  "  and  "  after  "  become 
meaningless,  with  consequent  scepticism  as  to  evolution 
of  external  nature  and  of  man.  And  if  God  can  be  self- 
revealed  as  real  agent  in  what  are  called  immoral  acts  of 
man,  how  can  this  be  reconciled  with  the  inevitable  self- 
accusation  of  which  the  immoral  man  is  conscious,  which 
postulates  that  he  is  the  origin  of  the  acts  ?  Or  how  does 
it  consist  with  our  reprobation  of  the  immoral  person  ? 

It  is  difficult  to  see  that  modern  thought  of  the  Hegelian  Do  we 
sort  has  done  much  towards  translating  even  these  two  j}nd  relief 
mysteries — an  eternally  evolving  universe,  and  morally  mysteries 
responsible  personality — out  of  the  darkness  in  which  they  ?f  "end" 
must  remain   unless  man  can  become  God.     Philosophy  and  "moral 
may  show,  notwithstanding,  that  those  dualisms — continu-  evil"  in 
ous  change  and  absolute  endlessness — physical  causality  idealism? 
and  moral  freedom — are  not  necessarily  inconsistent  with 
reason.     It  may  also  show  that  moral  reason  obliges  us  to 
live  under  their  pressure,  although  we  cannot  fully  think 
either  of  them  out  in  a  scientific  image,  but  must  be  con- 
tent with  a  fragment  at  the  last.     Moreover,  a  Universal 
Consciousness  that  is  supposed  to  reduce  to  illusion  the 
temporal  procession  of  events,  and  to  explain  away  the 
moral  economy  of  persons  who  are  independent  enough 
to  originate  acts  that  ought  not  to  be  acted, — this  Uni- 
versal Consciousness,  or  system  of  rational  relations,  while 
called  "  Spirit,"  begins  to  resemble  the  Universal  Substance 
of  Spinoza,  of  which  nothing  could  be  predicated,  while 
it  takes  only  a  semblance  of  meaning  from  the  illusory 
things  and  persons  presented  in  time.      The  intellectual 
vision  which  was   to  give  relief  seems   to  an   imperfect 
God  in  a  gradual  process  of  self- development,  revealed 
in  what  is  after  all  an   illusory  revelation ; — at  least  if 
we  are  bound  to  think  God  revealed  in  and  through  the 
conscious  acts  of  persons  who  are  not  really  persons. 

On  the  other  hand,  is  it  more  than  the  pretence  of  a  The"or- 

perfectly  explained  "  organic  unity  "  that  Hegelian  thought  gan*c  „ 

presents,  if  it  saves  the  reality  of  outward  events,  and  of  is  incom- 

linite  persons  with  their  self-originated  changes;   and  if  i,lete!>' 
.  f  ,.    .  <?.  *=>  ......      imaginable 

it  is  nt   to   rescue  divine  perfection   from  responsibility  unity  if 


240 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


it  saves 
finite  per- 
sonality. 


And  the 
mysteries 
of  endless- 
ness and 
moral  evil 
are  only 
verbally 
relieved. 


for  immoral  actions  of  men  ?  It  is  true  that  individual 
persons  are  not  conceived  by  the  Hegelian  to  be  mechani- 
cally parts  of  God,  although  they  have  their  true  reality 
in  Him ;  but  their  "  organic  unity  "  in  Him  seems  to  be 
only  a  term  to  cover  a  relation  still  left  in  the  mystery 
of  necessarily  incomplete  imaginative  thought.  It  is  an 
organic  unity  that  passes  human  realisation ;  although  it 
is  innocent  of  the  gross  idea  which  makes  all  things  and 
all  persons  only  physical  parts  of  One  Boundless  Sub- 
stance, or  physical  effects  of  One  Unknowable  Power. 

That  Hegel,  and  many  who  are  called  Hegelians,  mean 
their  final  thought  to  be  consistent  with  the  actuality  of 
the  world,  and  with  the  moral  personality  of  man,  I  do  not 
deny ;  nor  perhaps  can  one  fairly  interpret  this  philosophy 
or  theology  "  pantheistically  " — in  the  obnoxious  sense  that 
involves  final  moral,  and  therefore  final  physical,  agnosti- 
cism. Its  fundamental  unity  is  perhaps  elastic  enough  to 
admit  of  being  interpreted  so  as  to  comprehend — but  in  some 
still  mysterious  way — the  world  of  successive  nature,  and 
the  world  of  human  spirits,  without  spoiling  the  actual- 
ity of  the  world,  or  the  freedom  of  persons  to  create  actions 
referable  to  their  responsible  causation.  But  if  so,  this 
implies  the  need  for  faith,  or  incompleted  knowledge,  at 
last.  Yet  we  were  led  to  expect  that  through  Hegelian 
dialectic  final  faith  could  be  wholly  translated  into  philo- 
sophic science,  with  the  burden  of  its  mystery  all  removed 
— not  merely  with  the  mysteries  verbally  articulated  in  a 
more  scientific  form.  If  there  is  here  more  than  amended 
systematic  expression  of  the  old  difficulties,  one  fails  to 
find  it,  as  long  as,  notwithstanding  Hegel,  the  burden  still 
oppresses  that  resisted  all  former  attempts  so  to  think  out 
the  universe  as  to  eliminate,  for  example,  the  two  mys- 
teries which  I  have  taken  as  illustrations  of  man's  inade- 
quacy of  imaginative  thought.  Philosophy  still  remains 
knowledge  of  something  that  in  the  end  passes  realisable 
knowledge, — known  for  the  ends  of  a  life  which  can  be 
lived  well  if  we  will;  unknown,  because  inconceivable 
in  the  infiniteness  of  reality.  It  only  shows  the  con- 
structive co-operation  of  human  intelligence  in  a  world 
conceived  after  all  from  the  human  point  of  view.     So 


FINAL    FAITH.  241 

intellectual  analysis  of  human  experience  seems  always 
to  leave  at  the  last  a  residuum  of  trust — authoritative 
reason,  instead  of  infinitely  realised  reason; — authorita- 
tive reason  in  which  reverential  submission  to  what  is 
trusted  in  as  reasonable  is  more  prominent  than  com- 
pletely victorious  insight.  Surely  the  authority  of  rea- 
sonable faith  and  hope  can  be  wholly  dispensed  with 
only  in  the  Omniscience  which  leaves  no  room  for 
incomplete  knowledge. 

So  after  all  it  may  be  only  the  question  of  how  the  The  Hegel- 
final  attitude  of  man  to  what  is  of  human  interest  in  the  {gJtiaitn- 
universe  of  reality  should  be  named,  rather  than  differ-  aiysis 
ence  with  regard  to  what  the  attitude  must  at  last  actually  may.be 

7i  i  i  ai-i  i         •  making  a 

be,  that  separates  those  who  suppose  that  they  are  adopting,  m0re  mo- 
from  those  who  suppose  that  they  are  rejecting,  an  ideal  dest  claim, 
philosophy  of  man  and  the  universe  as  fully  explained  in 
God.  Is  it  best  called  knowledge — thought — reason;  or 
faith — trust — authority  ?  To  call  it  "  knowledge  "  seems 
to  claim  too  much,  as  long  as  there  is  an  inevitable 
remainder  of  mystery,  which  leaves  the  knowledge  in- 
complete— an  unimaginable  or  mysterious  unity.  To  call 
it  "faith"  may  seem  to  empty  it  of  all  that  is  not  indi- 
vidual or  subjective ;  for  truth  is  not  secured  by  the  most 
confident  credulity.  As  for  "  authority,"  the  word  perhaps 
suggests  deference  to  a  person,  instead  of  the  impersonal 
obligation  that  belongs  to  reasonable  proof.  But  if  those 
who  prefer  to  call  it  "  reason  "  or  "  knowledge  "  disclaim 
for  man  the  omniscience  which  they  otherwise  seem  to 
assume,  then  their  philosophy — at  last  obliged  to  submit 
to  arrest — is  really  faith  that  in  the  end,  and  throughout, 
trusts  in  what  is  not  fully  open  to  man's  comprehension. 
Then  the  difficulties  in  which  the  inevitable  remainder  of 
final  ignorance  involve  every  human  mind  do  not  forbid 
man  from  satisfying  the  demand  of  the  homo  mensura 
principle,  according  to  human  nature  in  its  spiritual  or 
divine  integrity. 

An  intellectual  analysis  of  religion,  including  Christian-  Hegelian 
ity,  that  adopts  this  attitude,  would  probably  be  regarded  gSSStoK 
by  some  as  not  inconsistent  with   Hegelian  theology  or 

Q 


242  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

philosophy,  with  its  interpretation  of  the  universe  of 
things  and  persons  in  terms  of  the  Universal  Eeason.  The 
"  organic  unity  "  of  Nature  and  Man  in  God  then  admits 
the  moral  freedom  of  agents  responsible  for  themselves 
when  they  act  immorally,  and  also  the  reality  of  temporal 
succession.  "  Identity  "  with  Universal  Eeason,  and  "  or- 
ganic unity  "  of  the  universe,  are  then  as  emphatic  expres- 
sions of  the  truth,  that  men  are  not  isolated  psychological 
atoms,  but  members  of  a  moral  totality,  in  which  final 
moral  faith  in  us  is  sure  to  find  sympathetic  response  in 
the  incompletely  comprehended  Divine  Power,  perpetually 
active  at  the  centre  of  the  Whole.  So  the  further  man 
penetrates,  the  more  fully  divine  order  discovers  itself; 
more  and  more  of  what  corresponds  to  our  final  faith  is 
recognised  in  the  principles  that  are  determining  the 
history  of  the  world ;  and  it  is  seen  that,  while  men  are 
"  free  "  to  resist  God  by  doing  evil,  it  is  in  their  harmony 
with  what  is  divine  that  the  highest  freedom  is  to  be 
found.  So  understood,  Hegelian  speculation  becomes  only 
a  more  elaborate  dialectical  expression  of  man's  dissatis- 
faction with  the  transitory  phenomena  of  sense,  in  percep- 
tion of  which  human  life  begins  ;  and  of  the  obligation 
which  the  reason  that  we  call  ours  finds  to  see  the  universe 
of  change  in  dependence  on  the  Perfect  Eeason  that  in 
broken  form  is  involved  in  our  experience,  but  under  which 
we  never  fully  comprehend  the  Whole.  It  becomes  a 
vindication  of  the  universe,  as  incapable  of  being  conceived 
as  mindless,  purposeless  evolution  of  phenomena — as  the 
revelation  instead  of  Spirit  to  spirits — thus  relieving  the 
chill  of  abstract  physical  science  with  the  warmth  of 
Omnipresent  life  and  love.  In  the  intellectual  analysis 
of  Eeligion,  one  may  in  this  way  be  helped  to  recognise 
his  own  moral  personality,  by  its  mysterious  affinity  with 
the  divine  system  in  which  it  is  involved.  But  even 
this  philosophy  would  be  at  last  an  expression  of  reason 
in  the  form  of  faith,  founded  upon  needs  inherent  in 
imperfect  human  comprehension.  At  the  best  it  would 
represent  the  most  intellectual  way  of  bearing  a  burden 
that  is  too  heavy  for  scientific  imagination.  It  would  be 
man's  philosophical  acknowledgment  of  absolute  depend- 


FINAL    FAITH.  243 

ence  upon  the  Universal  Power  that  he  is  nevertheless 
mysteriously  able  to  resist,  in  his  volitions  and  voluntarily 
formed  habits.  But  the  fundamental  faith  is  weakened, 
and  dogmatic  temper  is  encouraged,  when  all  assumes  the 
appearance  of  being  fully  translated  into  philosophical 
thought.  The  latent  rationality  of  the  faith  may  be  justi- 
fied, while  it  can  never  be  unfolded  by  man  in  an  ex- 
haustive speculative  imagination  of  the  Eeality.  The 
justification  of  the  faith  lies  in  this — that  the  universe  of 
experience  dissolves  in  pessimist  doubt  when  its  sustaining 
influence  is  withdrawn.  The  ultimate  foundation  of  proof 
must  be  incapable  of  direct  proof,  and  intellectual  reserve 
should  be  the  characteristic  of  all  human  philosophy. 

Final  Faith  is  tacit  or  implied  trust  that  nothing  can  Final 
happen  in  the  temporal  evolution  which  will  finally  put  to  ^"th.  Pd 
confusion  the  moral  reason  latent  in  Man  —  incompre- 
hensible as  the  world's  history  of  mingled  good  and  evil 
may  appear.  In  what  follows  we  are  to  contemplate  the 
Great  Enigma  which  threatens  to  transform  Final  Faith 
into  Total  Doubt. 


THIRD     PART 


THE  GREAT  ENIGMA  OF  THEISTIC  FAITH 


LECTURE   I. 


EVIL   ON   THIS   PLANET. 


I   HAVE   been    trying   to   show   the    implicate   in   reason  The 
which    demands    filial    trust    in    the    Universal    Power  l^re1?^ 
that  is  finally  operative  in  the  universe,  and   so  at  the  * 
heart  of  experience.     The  questions  which  next  meet  us 
are  concerned  with  the  supreme  difficulty  which  theistic 
faith   and  hope  encounter,  in  a  universe  which,  at  least 
on  this   planet,  presents  a   strange    mixture   of  what   is 
bad  with  what   is  good.     This  is  an  obstacle  to  the  re- 
ligious   interpretation    of    the    world,    which    must    be 
honestly  met.     But  first  recollect  what  we  have  already 
found. 

It   appeared    that  human  experience  in   the   universe  The  Ethi- 
tacitly   presupposes    the   ethical    trustworthiness    of    the  J^^f 
Power  that  is  continuously  revealing  itself  in  its  events,  the  uni- 
Knowleclge  dissolves,  and  conduct  is  paralysed,  on  the  sup-  verse- 
position  that  the  Universal  Power  may  be  morally  un- 
trustworthy ;    and    the   world,  therefore,   even  physically 
uninterpretable,  because   order,  in   the   evolution   of   its 
events,  is   not   to   be   depended   on.      Such   a    universe 
would  be  either  intended   to  put  us  to  intellectual  and 
moral   confusion ;    or,  if   it   be   an   unintended   and   ac- 
cidental  issue,  which    may   return   to    chaos,  its   events 
would  be  equally  liable  to  traverse  expectation  in   the 
end.     Moral  trust  in  a  perfectly  reasonable   universe  is 
the  needed  postulate  of  experience,  for  really  understand- 
ing any  fact  or  change.     This  fundamental  moral  trust,  at 
the  root  of  experience,  is  commonly  sub-conscious ;  it  is 


248  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

involved,  however,  in  the  trust  we  all  put  in  our  percep- 
tions of  things  present,  in  our  memories,  and  in  the  uni- 
formity of  nature.  In  all  these  I  find  ethical  faith  tacitly 
implied:  a  moral  acknowledgment  that  the  recollections 
of  memory,  and  the  supposition  of  physical  _  order,  cannot 
be  transitory  illusions,  in  a  temporal  procession  of  changes 
that  is  all  hollow  and  deceptive,  and  the  whole  per- 
formance the  manifestation,  not  of  trustworthy,  but  of 
malignant,  or  indifferent,  or  irrational  Power.  For  our 
activity  in  the  universe  is  dependent  on  the  optimist 
faith,  that  the  universe  with  which  we  are  in  constant 
communication  through  experience  must  be  morally 
trustworthy — perfectly  good  omnipotent  Power  or  Per- 
sonality being  therein  omnipresent. 
Conscience  In  this  ethical  root  of  experience,  one  finds  the  germ 
and  Caus-  0f  Theism.  It  is  the  practically  harmonising  principle  of 
ality"  the  threefold  articulation  of  realised  existence— the  three 

primary  data  from  which  we  all  start.  The  universe  of 
reality  is  finally  a  moral  unity,  incompletely  comprehen- 
sible in  human  intelligence,  but  which  moral  reason  obliges 
man  to  suppose  somehow  consistent  with  ideal  perfection 
in  the  Power  that  is  continually  at  work  in  the  heart  of 
it.  Cosmic  faith  unconsciously  involves  this  theistic 
faith;  for  even  physical  interpretation  of  cosmical  order 
must  be  interpretation  of  that  in  which  morally  trust- 
worthy Power  or  Personality  is  being  physically  revealed. 
Now,  originating  power  is  recognised  by  man  only  in 
morally  responsible  Will ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  physical  causation  is  more  than  the  language  of 
Active  Eeason  or  Will.  No  merely  natural  cause  can  be 
other  than  a  caused  cause  —  all  at  last  effect  of  moral 
power,  which  man  conceives  of  as  vital  or  conscious 
power.'  All  so-called  natural  agency  may  reasonably  be 
regarded  as  divine  agency ;  —  the  issue,  not  indeed  _  of 
capricious  will,  but  of  perfect  and  constantly  operative 
Eeason  in  the  form  of  Will,  which  may  be  trusted  not 
to  lead  us  into  illusion,  as  practical  interpreters  of  its 
revelations,  given  through  nature  and  in  man. 
Thephysi-  We  have  found,  too/that  the  universe  may  not  un- 
cai  uni- '     reasonably  be  interpreted  as  a  universe  charged  through- 


EVIL    ON    THIS    PLANET.  249 

out  with  adaptation;  in  which   everything  is  fitted  into  verse  an 
everything  else,  in   a  harmony  of  means  and  ends  —  the  ^Vf-'lvhl- 
"Whole  adaptable  by  man,  and  man's  organism  adapted  to  charged  ' 
the  Whole  ;  adaptation  likewise  of  every  sentient  being  throughout 
to  the  Whole,  and  of  the  Whole  to  every  sentient  being —  adaptation, 
the  adaptations,  not  all  of  them  visible  in  our  imperfect 
knowledge,  yet  legitimately  assumed  to  be  latent  in  the 
universal  constitution. 

That  the  ever-changing  universe,  in  which  our  conscious  Thein- 
lives  become  morally  involved  during  the  moment  between  soluble 
birth  and  death,  is  a  procession  of  natural  causes,  all  in  mystery 
their  turn  natural  effects,  in  a  regress  which  may  even  be  into  wnich 
unbeginning,  and  that  this  may  continue  without  end  in  ward  world 
successive    metamorphoses  —  all   this   does    not   seem    to  at  last  re- 
militate  against  the  need  for  our  finally  interpreting  the  seif^t" 
universe  in  theistic  faith  and  hope.     The  mystery  of  un-  necessarily 
beginningness  and  unendingness,  in  which  the   temporal  tent  with 
procession  of  natural  events  disappears  at  last,  need  not  its  finally 
involve    moral   distrust   of   the    Universal   Power.      The  theist.lc 
infinite  or  mysterious  duration  of  the  succession  of  things 
and  persons  need  not  make  experience  untrustworthy  and 
scientifically   unintelligible.      To   say  that   the  past    and 
future  of  nature  disappear  in  physical  mystery  is  one  way 
of  showing  that  human  intelligence  is  intermediate  between 
blind    Sense   and   Omniscience.      Our   conception   of  the 
infinite  in  quantity  of  extent  or  of  duration  is  in  harmony 
with  this  intermediate  position.     Duration  is  revealed  to 
us    as    a   quantity    that    seems    to    become    at    last    not 
a    quantity,    but   timeless    eternity;  and   this  perplexity, 
which  pursues  us  everywhere,  when  we  try  to  reduce  the 
infinite  in  quantity  to  the  conditions  of  an  understanding 
that  must  measure  by  experience  in  time,  faces  us  con- 
spicuously when  we  try  in  vain  to  read  the  riddles  with 
which  physical  causality  and  science  are  finally  charged. 
But  the  inevitable  darkness  in  which  we  become  involved 
need    not   communicate   itself   to    the   moral  reason,   nor 
disturb  ethical  trust  and  hope  in  the  Power  that  in  the 
end  determines  experience.     That  I  find  myself  living  in 
an  infinite  sphere,  the  centre  of  which  seems  to  be  every- 
where and  the  circumference  nowhere ;  or  in  a  movement 


250 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Duration 
in  its 
blended 
finitude 
and  infini- 
tude, an- 
alogous 
to  the 
practical 
revelation, 
yet  final 
incompre- 
hensibility, 
of  God. 


Person- 
ality. 


of  unbeoinnino;  and  endless  change,  need  not  disturb  the 
eternal  necessities  of  moral  obligation,  and  the  faith  that 
man's  highest  relation  in  all  this  is  to  Universal  Power  that 
is  morally  reliable.  Although  "  clouds  and  darkness  "  are 
round  about  the  revelation  of  this  Power,  which  is  re- 
vealed in  external  nature  and  in  the  spirit  of  man,  yet 
"righteousness  and  judgment"  must  be  "the  establish- 
ment of  its  throne  "  ;  and  our  use  of  experience  presup- 
poses that  the  whole  natural  process  must  be  making  for 
the  righteousness  in  which  is  the  divine  ideal. 

What  is  finite  in  quantity  and  its  Infinite  are  mysteri- 
ously blended  in  our  idea  of  duration  —  at  once  infinite 
and  finite,  subject  to  finite  measures  of  time,  yet  finally 
immeasurable  ; — either  way  incomprehensible.  The  tem- 
poral process  inevitably  resolves  at  last  into  what 
transcends  temporal  limits,  so  that  the  issues  are  per- 
ceived only  as  what  is  beyond  imaginative  thought. 
For  interminable  duration  is  unimaginable ;  a  million,  or 
a  million  times  a  million,  of  years,  being  still  finite,  is 
imaginable — although  a  human  imagination  cannot  dis- 
tinctly picture  so  prolonged  a  succession :  but  endlessness 
is  absolutely  unpicturable,  for  a  picture  contradicts 
the  thought :  yet  to  suppose  duration  an  illusion  is 
not  less  incomprehensible.  Succession  or  change  is  thus 
at  once  cognisable  and  incognisable  in  human  intelli- 
gence—  signally  illustrating  what  the  universe  of  our 
experience  in  so  many  ways  illustrates,  when  intelligence 
measured  by  sense  tries  fully  to  realise  the  Power  or 
Personality  that  finally  animates  the  whole.  God,  like 
duration,  is  at  once  intellectually  apprehended  and  yet  the 
final  mystery — revealed  for  man,  in  man;  and  in  all  natural 
causation,  when  external  nature  is  conceived  according  to 
the  analogy  of  what  is  highest  in  man. 

The  word  "  person  "  has  been  objected  to  as  unfit  for 
designating  the  omnipresent  Power  or  Principle  that 
pervades  and  harmonises  the  cosmic  organism,  making  its 
evolutions  the  object  of  more  or  less  developed  morally 
religious  trust,  and  adoration  to  the  persons  it  contains. 
To  our  crude  idea  of  personality  the  Universal  Power 
as  personal  seems  a  contradiction.     Infinite  Being,  it  is 


EVIL    ON    THIS    PLANET.  251 

argued,  because  all-comprehensive,  must  be  the  negation 
of  personality :  for  personality  is  antithetical  to  something 
else  that  is  not  personal,  and  therefore  excluded  from  the 
person.  This  seems  to  make  personality  finite.  So  I  am 
asked  by  a  critic  to  explain  how  Omnipresent  Being  can 
be  personal :  ubiquity  and  personality  seem  to  him  irrecon- 
cilable as  light  and  darkness. 

Those  who  allege  this  objection  to  the  finally  ethical  Personality 
or  religious  interpretation  of  existence  seem  to  include  ^{V,'1!'' 
in  their  idea  of  personality  what  I  should  exclude  as  mantotae 
irrelevant,  —  irrelevant  perhaps  even  when  the  term  Jj)liv,,.rs ,! 
is  applied  to  human  beings,  certainly  when  applied  to 
the  Universal  Power.  Does  not  the  faith  on  which  ex- 
perience reposes — the  faith  that  the  universe  is  finally 
trustworthy,  and  that  I  am  morally  free — put  man  in 
an  ethical  relation  to  this  Power  ?  Now,  if  "  person,"  as 
distinguished  from  "  thing,"  is  taken  as  a  term  which^ 
signalises  moral  relation,  and  implies  moral  as  contrasted 
with  merely  mechanical  or  physical  agency ;  and  if  the 
universe,  in  its  final  principle,  is  practically  treated  as  an 
object  of  moral  trust,  when  we  live  in  obedience  to  its 
laws — does  not  this  mean  that  it  is  virtually  personal, 
for  us  revelation  of  a  person  rather  than  of  a  thing — that 
we  are  in  constant  communication  with  Perfect  Person, 
not  merely  with  infinite  Thing  ?  If  our  deepest  relation 
must  be  ethical  trust  in  perfect  wisdom  and  goodness, 
making  for  the  goodness  of  all  finite  persons  in  all  worlds 
— trust  in  the  adaptations  of  the  universe  to  all  who 
are  willing  to  be  physically  and  morally  adapted  to 
it  —  this  practically  means  that  our  deepest  relation 
to  reality  is  ethical  rather  than  physical :  that  per- 
sonality instead  of  thingness  is  the  highest  form  under 
which  man  can  conceive  God.  This  is  final  moral  per- 
sonification, or  religious  conception,  of  the  universe  of 
experience. 

But  this  primary  and  inevitable  moral  postulate  does  The  [n- 
not  oblige,  or   even  permit,  those  who — for  the  reason  |jn!j?or 
now   suggested — speak  of  God  as  "  Person  "  to  affirm  of  mysterious 
God  all  that  is  involved  in   our   imperfect   personality,  lv,s""- 
any  more  than  the  use  of  the   common    term    duration, 


252  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

when  we  speak  of  a  short  duration  and  eternal  duration, 
obliges  us  to  suppose  that  eternity  must  be  conditioned 
like  measurable  time.  The  "personality"  of  God  need 
not  mean  that  the  Being  adumbrated  in  Nature  and  Man 
is  embodied  and  individual  self-conscious  life,  like  the 
human, — that  God  is  organised  and  extended,  as  man  now 
is — or  omnipresent  as  in  sensuous  imagination ;  or  that 
God  has  a  conscious*  experience,  that  is  subject  like  ours 
to  change  of  conscious  state.  Ubiquity  and  eternity  we 
have  found  to  be  for  us  terms  which  express  commingled 
comprehension  and  necessary  incomprehensibility.  The 
v  Augustinian  "  Eternal  Now,"  instead  of  conscious  change, 
^  as  appropriate  to  Divine  Intelligence,  hardly  helps  us  ;  for 
subtraction  of  Past  and  Future  seems  not  to  consist  with 
the  reality  of  change  and  of  evolution,  or  with  difference 
between  what  has  happened  and  what  has  not  yet 
happened.  It  seems  to  dissolve  all  supposed  past  and 
prospective  realities  into  illusions.  Personality  in  man, 
moreover,  implies  memory ;  but  we  are  not  bound  to 
suppose  that  the  religious  conception  of  the  universe  im- 
plies memory  in  the  Perfect  Person  with  whom  all 
experience  brings  us  into  constant  intercourse.  Also  a 
human  intelligence  of  the  world  involves  reasoning,  on 
the  part  of  human  persons ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that 
the  Perfect  Person  who  speaks  to  us  in  the  universe  of 
nature  and  man  must  be  conscious  of  deducing  con- 
clusions from  premisses,  or  of  generalising  under  con- 
ditions of  inductive  calculation.  The  "personality  of 
God  "  is  a  formula  which  implies  that,  in  relation  to  us — 
or  at  the  human  point  of  view — the  Universal  Power, 
manifested  in  nature  and  in  man,  must  be  regarded  at 
last  ethically,  not  physically — therefore  as  an  imperfectly 
conceived  Person,  not  as  an  imperfectly  conceived  Thing. 
Thephy-  But   the  final  mystery  of  unbeginning  and  unending 

sical  mys-  cosmos,  and  others  involved  in  physical  evolution,  are  not 
Smi-  after  a11  tne  pressing  "  burden  and  mystery  of  this  unin- 
verse,  not  telligible  world."  For  a  universe  in  which  the  finite  in 
obstacifto  quantity  and  the  infinite  are  so  blended  as  in  the  end  to 
a  finally  transcend  human  science,  is  not  inconsistent  with  absolute 
moral  or      ^^  trust  on  ^q  part  of  the  persons  who  are  participating 


EVIL    ON    THIS    PLANET.  253 

in  this  mysterious  physical  existence.  Their  religious  theistic 
interpretation  of  the  Whole,  in  spite  of  those  intellectual  JatiSof  it 
difficulties,  is  still  ready  to  relieve  the  agnostic  embarrass- 
ment that  arises  when  a  physically  scientific  solution  of 
the  infinite  problem  of  the  universe  is  expected  in  vain, 
and  in  an  experience  that  cannot  be  lived  and  acted  in 
reasonably  after  paralysis  of  final  moral  trust.  Granted 
that  man  cannot  explain  how  or  why  God  exists,  or  indeed 
why  any  thing  or  person  should  exist  at  all.  This  human 
ignorance  is  surely  not  a  sufficient  objection  to  the 
application  of  the  primary  ethical  postulate  to  our  life 
in  the  changing  world  in  which  we  find  ourselves. 

The  formidable  obstacle  to  ultimate  moral  trust  in  the  The  mix- 
Universal  Power  revealed  in  the  universe,  is  found,  not  ^  ^ith 
in  the  physical  mysteries,  spatial   and   temporal,  or  be-  Good  in 
cause  they  evade  scientific  imagination,  but  in  the  liv-  creels  the 
ing  contents   of  this   planet.     Here  much  is  found  that  supreme 
ought  not  to  exist.     Here  what  is  bad  is  mixed  up  with  emgma- 
what   is   good — what    is  immoral    with    what    is   moral. 
Capricious  distribution  of  pain  seems  to  be  as  much  the 
custom  of  the  Universal  Power  as  happiness,  which  the 
world,    as     a     revelation    of    ethically   trustworthy   and 
therefore     gracious     Power,      might     be      expected     to 
present     universally.      Ignorance    and    error,    moreover, 
take  the    place    of   intelligent  insight,  more    or   less,  in 
all    human   minds :    reason,    "  the    candle  of   the   Lord," 
in  the  light  of  which  sentient  beings  might  escape  many 
evils,    and    might    attain    to    more    good,  —  this    candle 
of  the  Lord  burns  so  dimly  in   all  human  minds  that 
even  those   who  have  the  largest  share  of  it  complain 
that  it  only  shines  enough  to  show  the  darkness.     But 
pain  and  error  may   be   evils  only  relatively,   incidents 
natural   to   gradually   developing  intelligence  and  good- 
ness :  at  a  higher  point  of  view  they  may,  perhaps,  appear 
to  be  absolutely  good.     At  least  they  are  less  formidable 
obstacles  to  religious  trust  and  hope  than  wicked  human 
acts,  which  contradict  the  ethical  ideal,  and  which  must 
therefore  be  absolutely  evil.     If  what  is  wicked  can  enter 
into  existence  in  the  inner  life  of  men,  what  trust  can  be 


254 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


How  can 
moral  per- 
fection be 
predicated 
of  the  Uni- 
versal 
Power, 
when  that 
Power  is 
revealed  in 
the  form  of 
a  world 
which  con- 
tains evil  ? 


put  in  the  moral  perfection — and  consequent  making  for 
goodness  in  all  persons,  for  the  sake  of  goodness — in  the 
Power  that  is  at  the  root  of  all  ?  The  universe  now  begins 
to  look  untrustworthy,  its  phenomena  therefore  uninter- 
pretable,  and  human  life  hopeless. 

It  is  a  fact  that  somehow  persons  on  this  planet  are 
not  as  they  ought  to  be.     Experience  shows  our  world  to 
be  now  "  in  a  very  strange  state,"  as  Bishop  Butler  used 
to  say;  and  it  does  not  appear  that  it  was  ever  not  so, 
or  that  all  men  will  ever  be  found  perfectly  good.     How 
then  can  the  Universal  Power  be  Omnipotent  Goodness,  I 
when   the  continuous    evolution   of   blended  things  and! 
persons,  in  which  the  character  of  that  Power  is  supposed/ 
to  be  revealed,  contains   evil  ?     A  person's   character  is 
judged  of  by  his  actions  :    the  action  of  the  Power  that 
is  continuously  operative  in  the  universe  of  our  experi- 
ence, when  it  issues  in  evil,  seems  inconsistent  with  the 
primary  moral  postulate  of  experience. 

It  is  true  that  man's  experience  of  the  universe  is  con- 
fined to  a  very  narrow  corner  of  it — chiefly  to  this  remote, 
transitory  planet — and  to  a  small  part  of  what  it  contains. 


Our  experi- 
ence is  con- 
fined to  the 
sentient 

beings  on     Indeed,  as  far  as  man's  knowledge  goes,  sentient  beings 

this  planet, 


and  even 
in  this  is 
limited  in 
space  and 
duration. 


> 


and  self-conscious  persons  exist  only  within  this  little 
planet ;  which  thus  for  him  contains  all  that  makes  the 
final  problem  interesting  and  ominous.  If  our  universe 
had  consisted  only  of  molecules  and  matter  in  motion, 
without  sentient  beings,  and  responsible  persons,  who 
feel,  and  think,  and  will,  its  theistic  significance  would 
be  gone,  in  the  absence  of  all  who  could  realise  it. 
Apart  from  the  relations  of  outward  things  to  the  sen- 
tient and  personal  life  of  which  our  world  is  the  scene, 
what  good  or  evil  can  be  attributed  to  dead  matter  ? 
The  mixed  good  and  evil  of  the  universe,  as  far  as  man's 
experience  can  carry  him,  resolves  into  the  good  or  evil 
that  is  found  in  the  sensitive,  intellectual,  and  moral 
state  of  living  beings  on  this  planet.  But  what  are 
they,  we  may  be  asked,  as  examples  of  the  Whole  ?  Our 
planet,  compared  to  the  stellar  system,  is  less  than  a  grain 
of  sand  compared  to  all  the  grains  in  the  solar  system ; 
and  its  living  occupants  may   be   more  insignificant  in 


> 


EVIL    ON    THIS    PLANET.  25  5 

relation  to  the  Whole  than  the  living  occupants  of  that 
grain  of  sand  in  relation  to  all  the  living  beings  that 
inhabit  the  earth.  Nor,  after  all,  can  man  reasonably 
assume  that  the  possession  of  moral  agents  is  a  peculiarity 
of  this  planet  alone  in  the  stellar  universe.  Each  of 
the  innumerable  millions  of  suns  with  their  attendant 
planets  may  be  similarly  occupied ;  or  some  may  be 
empty  and  others  crowded  with  living  beings  ;  and  per- 
sonal life  need  not  be  confined  to  organisms  located  on 
planets,  or  exclude  spirits  able  to  range  through  space,  or 
even  existing  unem bodied.  There  may  be  sentient  beings 
whose  intelligence  is  brought  by  their  senses  into  relation 
with  a  material  world  that  presents  none  of  the  qualities 
which  matter  presents  to  us ;  inasmuch  as  they  arc 
endowed  with  none  of  our  senses,  but  instead  with  five, 
or  fifty,  or  five  hundred  senses  wholly  alien  to  those 
of  man.  These  and  innumerable  other  possibilities  are 
open,  and  may  minimise  indefinitely  the  importance  of 
the  mingled  good  and  evil  in  the  current  of  moral  and 
sentient  life,  as  it  flows  through  men  and  other  animals 
on  this  planet,  so  limited  in  its  extent,  and  with  a  duration 
so  brief  of  its  individual  embodied  lives. 

But  after  all  these  limitations  do  not  much  affect  the  But  this 
present  question.     Ethical  trust  in  the  absolute  perfection  J?^^0^ 
of  the  power  at  work  in  the  universe  is  inconsistent  with  difficulty 
any  evil  in  its  remotest  corner,  as  much  as  with  a  universe  ,>tany  Evil 
of  unmixed  evil.     Falsus  in  uno,falsus  in  omnibus.     Trust  f0Und 
is  shaken  even  in  a  man  who  is  anywhere,  or  at  any  time,  anywhere, 
doing   what  is  wrong;    and   no   man   is   omnipotent  and  versewh"ich 
omniscient.      Much    more    must   a    single    evil    destroy  we  are 
ethical  trust  and  hope  in  the  Universal  rower.    To  believe  suppose  ° 
ill   Perfect  Goodness  is  to  believe  that  all  is  as  it  ought  i-thi.-aiiy 
to   be;    and  this  faith  is  disturbed   if  anything  is  found  JJJrthyal 
existing  which  ought  not  to  exist,  however  insignificant  the  root, 
the  place  in  which    it    is    found,    and   however  rare  the 
occurrence.      One    such    issue    seems    to  darken    Infinite 
Goodness.     And  for  man  the  issues  on  this  planet  are  his 
all  in  all.     He  interprets  the  moral  universe  by  the  only 
specimen  of  it  which  enters  into  his  limited  experience. 

Now,  the  hardest  difficulty  which  man  has  to  meet  in 


256 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  exist- 
ence of  liv- 
ing beings 
in  the 
strange 
state  in 
which 
those  on 
this  planet 
are  found. 


This  diffi- 
culty as 
put  by 
David 
Hume. 


putting  a  religions  interpretation  upon  the  universe  is  not 
the  existence  of  natural  causes — unwarrantably  supposed 
to  expel  instead  of  to  reveal  God.  It  is  the  bad  state  in 
which  man  finds  men,  and  other  sentient  beings  too,  on 
his  small  planetary  home.  It  may  be  true  that  we  can- 
not so  distinguish  the  possible  from  the  impossible  as  to 
assert  with  some  theological  pessimists  that  this  is  the 
worst  world  possible ;  nor  even  that  it  is  so  bad  that  it 
were  better  for  men  to  pass  for  ever  out  of  conscious  life 
than  to  persist  in  it  under  the  given  conditions.  Yet, 
at  the  least,  the  history  of  this  planet  forms  a  revelation 
of  Omnipotent  Goodness  unlike  what  an  intelligent  being, 
obliged  to  presuppose  goodness  in  the  universe,  might  be 
apt  to  expect. 

Philo  puts  the  case  plainly  in  Hume's  '  Dialogues ' :  "  It 
must,  I  think,  be  allowed  that  if  a  limited  human  intel- 
ligence, utterly  unacquainted  with  the  actual  universe, 
were  assured,  before  trial,  that  it  was  the  production  of 
a  very  good,  wise,  and  powerful  Being,  he  would  in  his 
conjectures  form  beforehand  a  very  different  notion  of  it 
from  what  we  find  it  to  be  by  experience  ;  nor  would  he 
ever  imagine,  merely  from  those  attributes  of  its  cause  of 
which  he  was  previously  informed,  that  the  effect  could  be 
so  full  of  vice  and  misery  and  disorder  as  it  appears  in 
this  passing  life.  Supposing,  indeed,  that  this  person 
were  brought  into  the  world  assured  (on  a  priori  grounds) 
that  it  was  the  workmanship  of  such  a  sublime  and  benev- 
olent Being,  he  might  perhaps  be  surprised  at  the  dis- 
appointment, but  would  never  retract  his  former  belief,  if 
founded  on  any  solid  argument ;  —  since  such  a  limited 
intelligence  must  be  sensible  of  his  own  blindness  and 
ignorance,  and  must  therefore  allow  that  there  may  be 
many  solutions  of  these  phenomena  which  will  for  ever 
escape  his  comprehension.  But  supposing,  which  is  the 
real  case  with  regard  to  man  (?)  that  this  intelligent  crea- 
ture is  not  antecedently  convinced  of  a  Supreme  Intellig- 
ence, benevolent  and  powerful,  but  is  left  to  gather  such  a 
belief  solely  from  the  appearances  of  things,  this  entirely 
alters  the  case ;  nor  will  he  ever  find  any  reason  for  such 
a  conclusion.     He  may  be  fully  convinced  of  the  narrow 


EVIL    ON    THIS    PLANET.  257 

limits  of  his  own  understanding ;  but  this  will  not,  in  these 
circumstances,  help  him  to  infer  the  goodness  of  the  om- 
nipotent Power ;  since  he  must  form  his  inference  from  the 
facts  he  knows,  not  from  what  he  is  ignorant  of.  The 
more  you  exaggerate  his  weakness  and  ignorance,  the  more 
diffident  you  render  him,  and  give  him  the  greater  sus- 
picion that  such  subjects  are  beyond  his  faculties." 

This  is  distinctly  put.     One  cannot  infer  a  good  artist  it  is 


from  a  bad  picture,  especially  if  he  has  only  the  one  picture  JSji?lllUe 
to  go  upon  for  his  conclusion.     And  if  the  philosophy  of  fofem^i- 
the  universe  must  be,  as  with  Hume,  ivholly  empirical,  it  calphiloso- 
is  not  only  impossible  to  conclude  that  the  world  is  the  FhtephtS- 
revelation  of  Omnipotent  Goodness, — it  is  also  impossible  soi'hy  is 
to  interpret  any  of  its  phenomena  for  any  useful  purpose,  paralysed, 
or  indeed  to  make  any  inference  about  anything.     Is  there  even  in  its 
an  alternative  to  a  universal  doubt,  if  we  may  in  reason  ^Spreta- 
suspect  the  moral  integrity  of  the  Power  manifested  to  us  tions,  when 
in  nature  and  in  man  ?     Not  to  speak  of  physical  science,  ^  thdSJ 
can  any  reasonable  movement  even  of  our  bodies  be  made,  trust  is 
if  we  finally  distrust  the  Power  that  we  must  in  all  our  withdniwn- 
experience  continually  rest  upon  ?     No  doubt  the  narrow 
limit  of  our  physical  experience  on  this  planet  does  not 
experimentally   demonstrate    to    us    the    fact    that    the  ^ 
Universal   Power   must   be   perfectly  good :    intellectual  * 
finitude  only  infers  that  man  does  not  know  enough  to 
necessitate  the  belief  that  the  suspicious  phenomena  are 
inconsistent  with  perfection  in  the  Power  that  they  reveal. 
But  if  ethical  perfection  of  the  Universal  Power   must 
be  presupposed  as  the  indispensable  condition  on  which 
self  and  the  world  are  interpretable,  and  life  fit  to  be 
lived — this  necessary  postulate  is  a  recluctio  ad  absurd urn 
of    the    dogma,   that   a    wholly    empirical    ultimate    pre- 
miss, like  that  supplied  by  Hume,  is  adequate  philoso- 
phically.     A  primary  premiss   that  is  wholly  empirical, 
and   takes  nothing  for  granted,  can  never  get  us  under 
weigh.     Moral  trust    in    the  Universal   Power   must   be 
postulated,  to  enable  man  to  make  way  at  all  either  in 
science  or  in  conduct. 

\      Animal  suffering,  human  pain  ;  misinterpretation  of  ex-  Pain,  error. 

/perience;  violation  of  moral  order,  by  the  occurrence  of  sin>  and 

R 


258 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


death  are 
the  chief 
Evils  pre- 
sented in 
the  human 
experience 
of  the  uni- 


The  exist- 
ence of 
moral  evil 
in  this  part 
of  the  uni- 
verse is 
the  final 
difficulty 
in  theistic 
faith. 


> 


acts  inconsistent  with  obligation  to  man  and  God ;  death, 
which  painfully  separates  persons  united  in  fellowship,  and 
brings  the  curtain  down  before  the  act  is  well  begun,  and  al- 
most before  the  dying  persons  have  had  time  to  know  where 
and  why  they  exist, — these,  I  suppose,  are  some  of  the 
'evils  which,  on  this  small  planet,  seem  at  variance  with 
even  fairness  in  the  Universal  Power, — on  faith  in  whom 
human  knowledge  and  life  tacitly  repose.  It  is  sus- 
picious facts  like  these  that  tend  to  paralyse  the  primary 
ethical  postulate  of  human  experience.  For  what  crimes 
do  animals  endure  the  torments  which  so  many  undergo 
in  the  evolutions  of  nature  \  What  good  purpose  is 
served  by  the  miseries  of  which  tilings  are  natural  causes 
— to  men  and  to  other  animated  beings;  and  which,  if  all 
natural  causation  is  really  divine  causation  under  natural 
conditions,  must  all  be  caused  by  God  ?  On  this  planet 
Xature  often  looks  cruel  and  unrelenting,  or  at  least 
indifferent  to  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  its  sentient 
inhabitants.  And  the  seeming  cruelty  or  indifference 
is,  for  all  we  can  tell,  presented  on  a  greater  scale  in 
other  parts  of  the  stellar  universe  than  on  this  little 
planet.  Do  not  stars  suddenly  disappear  —  in  collision, 
it  may  be,  with  other  stars  —  involving,  we  may  fancy, 
the  sudden  death  in  agony  of  their  sentient  passengers ; 
or  continuous  suffering  beforehand,  while  the  natural 
changes  were  gradually  unfitting  their  world  for  living 
occupants  ? 

But  the  greatest  enigma  presented  to  man  is  the  exist- 
ence in  man  of  what  ought  not  to  exist,  —  the  rise  of 
what  philosophers  call  nioxaL-evil,  or  what  Christian 
theologians  call  sin.  Must  not  that  which  moral  reason 
pronounces  to  be  absolutely  inconsistent  with  the  vital- 
ised moral  obligation  which  the  religious  conception 
involves,  and  on  which  our  faith  finally  reposes, — must 
not  that  be  contradictory  of  theistic  faith  and  hope  ? 
Pain,  error,  and  death  may  be  evil  only  as  seen  at  a 
human  point  of  view.  Sin  is  absolutely  evil.  Pain  is  the 
correlative  of  pity  and  sympathy :  it  is  a  natural  and 
therefore  divine  means  for  the  education  of  spiritual  life. 
Moreover,  the  assumption  that  pleasure  ought  to  be  the 


EVIL    ON    THIS    PLANET.  259 

supreme  end  of  moral  agents  is  one  which  reason  would 
iind  it  dihioult  to  sustain.  The  ideal  of  what  Cudworth 
calls  the  "  intellectual  system  of  the  universe "  is  some- 
thing higher  than  pleasure,  as  one  may  argue  from  the 
•constitution  of  man  and  its  still  dormant  ideal. 

But  the  continued  presence  of  what  is  unconditionally  For  Sin 
had  cannot  be  disposed  of  in  this  way.     How  to  relieve  p^0^'^1"5 
the  mystery  of  moral  evil,  including  what  seems  an  unfair  explained 
distribution  of  pleasure  and  pain,  and  an  unfair  adjust-  ".only Mo- 
ment of  individual  opportunities  for  moral  growth,  has  Evil. 
been  the  human  perplexity  from  the  beginning.     It  finds 
expression  in  Hebrew  poets  like  Job,  and  in  Greek  drama- 
tists like  ^Eschylus.    Can  it  be  reconciled  with  final  moral 
trust  and  hope  in  the  Power  that  is  universally  revealed 
in  external  and  spiritual  experience,  or  must  we  subside 
into  total  scepticism  ? 

That  this  universe  of  commingled  good  and  evil  must  Either 
be  the  issue  of  a   constant  struggle  between  two   rival  JJjJJjJj18* 
Eternal  Powers,  the  one  benevolent,  the  other  malevolent,  or  else 
is  an  ancient  explanation  of  those   strange  appearances.  J^^One 
The  explanation  is  symbolised  in  the  Zoroastrian  antithesis  wholly  in- 
of  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  and  it  is  not  without  advocates  J^™nt' 
in  the  modern  world.    Its  implied  subversion  of  the  primary  offered  as 
ethical  postulate,   without   which  experience  is  untrust-  s°1}lti.ons 

i  i    T  t        i   •       i       i-       i  j_i  -j.1     of  Evil. 

worthy,  must  alone  discredit  this  dualist  hypothesis,  with 
those  who  are  not  prepared  to  yield  at  last  to  uni- 
versal agnosticism  and  pessimist  despair.  A  like  difficulty 
attends  the  Monism,  which  concludes,  either  that  the 
Universal  Power,  revealed  in  the  world,  is  a  Power  of 
mixed  good  and  evil,  corresponding  to  the  mixed  pheno- 
mena which  surround  us ;  or  else  that  it  is  Power  blindly 
indifferent  to  happiness  or  misery,  moral  good  or  moral  evil. 
Manichean  dualism,  in  the  form  of  two  eternal  Powers, 
good  and  evil,  and  Monism,  or  a  single  eternal  Power, 
partly  good  and  partly  evil,  or  else  indifferent,  are  both 
inconsistent  with  the  indispensable  moral  faith  and  hope. 

Again.     The  traditional  teaching  of  popular  Christian  '|Tempt* 
theology  attributes  the  evils  which  afflict  men  and  other  rjevil'^ 
animated  beings  on  this  planet  to  a  "fall"  of  the  race  only  a  pro- 


260  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

visional  ex-  of  man,  as  such,  from  its  divine  ideal — into  a  mainly  ap- 
planation.   maj  an(j  srnfui  condition,  caused  by  the  temptation  of  a 
supremely  wicked  person,  the  Devil,  in  whom  the  Evil  in 
the  universe  is  personified.     The  first  man  yielded  to  the 
Devil ;  in  consequence  all  men  are  predisposed  to  sin  and 
suffer,  through  inherited  opposition  to  the  Divine  Ideal. 
This   may  satisfy  those  who   do   not  care  to  press  the 
question.      But  it  only  moves  the  mystery  a  step  back, 
while  it  even  aggravates  it.     It  throws  no  light   upon 
the  mixture  of  evil  with  good  in  the  universe,  even  if 
the  facts  on  which  it  proceeds  are  admitted.     With  this 
Evil  Spirit  the  occasion  of  wickedness  in  man,  and  sin  in 
consequence  involved  in  the  natural  history  of  the  human 
race — the  fact  of  its  pre-existence  in  the  wicked  Spirit 
remains  unexplained;  with  the  added  difficulty  of  a  natural 
transmission  of  sin,  which  seems  to  reduce  sin  to  physical 
evil ;    to  transform  moral  or  immoral  persons  into  non- 
moral  things ;  and  to  destroy  personal  responsibility.     If 
the  Devil  is  an  Eternal  Power,  co-ordinate  with  God,  we 
are  landed  in  Manicheism,  with  its  two  gods,  neither  of 
which  can  properly  be  called  God — and  the  issue  is  an 
untrustworthy  universe.     If  he  is  a  "  fallen  "  finite  person, 
how  entered  moral  evil  into  him  ?    The  difficulty  is  aggra- 
vated.     What  is   immoral  somehow  arose  in  the  Devil, 
and  is  now  naturally  transmitted  among  men,  in  a  uni- 
verse which  is,  nevertheless,  postulated  to  be  a  revelation 
of  Omnipotent  Goodness. 
Can  moral        These  conjectures  all  fail  to  justify  trust  and  hope  in 
necessif    f  ^ne  Power  universally  at  work  in  the  universe  which  con- 
finite  per-    tains  what  ought  not  to  exist.    There  are  other  conjectures 
sonality  >     according  to  which  sin  is  explained  away.    For  they  imply 
intract-       that  its  appearance  is  unconditionally  necessary  in  a  world 
abieness  of  0f  finife  persons.     Finitude  must  include  imperfection,  it 
may  it  even  is  argued.     Contrast  or  antithesis  is  unavoidably  involved 
be  ex-         jn  individuality,  which  must  be  the  product  of  opposed 
awayas  a    forces,  and  character  is  naturally  formed  by  the  struggle 
mere  nega-  0f  evil  with  good.     Good,  it  is  assumed,  can  exist  only  by 
-  collision  with  existing  Evil :  attraction  involves  repulsion, 
and  positive  involves  negative  electricity.     In  infinite  un- 
individual  Power  alone  can  perfection  be  realised,  without 


EVIL    ON    THIS    PLANET.  261 

the  otherwise  necessary  mixture  and  antithesis  of  evil. 
But  unconditional  necessity  for  being  bad  makes  badness 
in  persons  no  longer  immoral.  No  one  can  be  blamed  for 
what  is  unconditionally  necessary,  or  feel  remorse  because 
it  is  found  in  him.  Then  some  of  the  old  philosophers 
insisted  that  Matter  was  the  one  necessary  obstacle  to  a 
universe  of  unmixed  good :  the  universe  could  not  be 
formed  at  all,  it  was  assumed,  without  pre-existing  Matter ; 
and  the  intractable  material  was  supposed  to  be  incapable 
of  reduction  to  perfect  order  even  by  Omnipotence.  But 
if  this  be  so,  Evil  is  no  longer  what  ought  not  to  he :  Evil  \ 
cannot  hut  he.  And  this  reference  of  moral  Evil  to  Matter  \ 
only  postpones  the  difficulty,  whilst  it  lays  an  unwarrant- 
able burden  upon  Matter,  which  is  known  to  us  as  only 
a  system  of  sense  symbols  through  which  God  speaks  to 
us.  Matter  as  known  by  us  is  the  valued  servant  and 
symbol  of  spirit,  in  constant  correlation  with  living  mind. 
Again,  that  Evil  is  only  negation,  while  nothing  real 
can  be  negative,  is  another  fancy  of  some  theologians,  i 
and  in  some  philosophical  theodicies.  Nothing  that  ought ' 
not  to  exist,  it  is  argued,  can  come  into  real  existence ; 
what  exists  can  err  only  by  defect  of  reality.  But  is 
not  a  cruel  or  a  dishonest  purpose  something  that  actually 
exists  in  the  mental  experience  of  the  cruel  or  dishonest 
man  ?  Nothing  seems  to  be  accomplished  by  this  sup- 
posed relief,  except  a  change  of  name. 

That  "  moral  obligation "   can  be  the  creation  of  will,  Moral  ob- 
and  that  Divine  will  must  be  good  whatever  is  willed,  is  ^s^1011 
the  dogma  of  some  theologians.     Inis  explains  away  moral  resolved 
order,  and  resolves  goodness  into  omnipotence ;  virtually  jj*°  ^j 
transforms  persons  into  things  ;  and  leads,  when  intrepidly 
followed,  into  final  pessimist  scepticism. 

These  conjectures,  strictly  understood,  all  tend  to  dis-  Either  Pes- 

solve  the  optimist  faith  that  is  implied  in  a  religiously  o'lthSsm 

conceived    world.      But    what   is   meant   by    Optimism  ?  the  ulti- 

This  question  will  be  next  considered.  mi\w  alter" 

t-  natives. 


262 


LECTUEE   II. 


THEISTIC     OPTIMISM. 


men. 


Acts  that  Moral  evil  is  not  an  abstraction.  It  is  actually  found  in 
tobe^cted  tne  ^ves  °^  numan  persons  who  occupy  this  planet, 
found  in  '  The  appearance  of  Sextus  Tarquin,  that  monster  of 
cruelty,  is  taken  by  Leibniz  as  an  example  of  the  lurid 
facts  which  threaten  to  paralyse  theistic  faith,  casting 
doubt  on  the  moral  meaning  of  the  universe.  Leibniz 
tries  to  explain  them  in  the  celebrated  optimist  theory 
unfolded  in  his  'TheodiceV  But  Tarquin  and  Nero 
and  Caligula  are  not  singular  among  monsters  who  have 
appeared  in  human  form,  and  occupied  thrones  as  well 
as  places  from  thrones  downwards,  in  the  history  of 
mankind  to  the  present  hour  —  the  source  of  told  and 
untold  misery  in  myriads  of  living  beings.  For  moral 
evil  is  found  in  more  than  a  few  persons.  Experience 
of  men  suggests  a  mysterious  tendency  in  man  to  decline 
from  his  true  ideal;  a  disposition  which  seems  to 
work  in  human  beings  from  the  beginning  of  their  per- 
sonal life;  which  we  are  conscious  ought  to  be  resisted, 
and  against  which  the  policy  of  mankind  ought  to  be  a 
constant  struggle— sustained  in  persistent  endeavour  to 
recover  divine  life  and  rise  into  the  ideal  man.  In- 
deed the  religious  conception  of  the  universe  is  strangely 
apt  to  decay,  notwithstanding  the  hope  and  courage  which 
its  development  inspires.  The  ingenuity  of  some  is  ex- 
hausted in  searching  for  arguments  through  which  to 
escape  from  theistic  hope  in  the  Universal  Power,  and 
to   conclude  that   conscious  life  is   not  worth  living;  — 


THEISTIC    OPTIMISM.  263 

so  that  the  supreme  end  of  man  should  be  to  get  out  of 
consciousness  finally;  if  it  is  possible  for  a  being  who  is 
once  conscious  to  become  finally  impersonal  and  uncon- 
scious. How  and  why  there  should,  especially  now  in 
Europe,  be  this  pessimist  disposition,  this  preference  of 
the  merely  physical  faith  that  taken  alone  is  untrust- 
worthy, instead  of  final  faith  in  the  trustworthiness  of 
the  Whole,  is  difficult  to  understand.  The  perverted 
and  degrading  forms  which  religion  often  assumes  prob- 
ably in  part  account  fur  it  in  a  refined  civilisation. 

On  the  whole,  we  find  that  much  which  ought  not  to  The  appar- 
exist,  and  which  need  not  exist,  is  found  in  this  corner  entincon- 
of   the    universe; — whatever  may   be    the  case  in  other  EvilShe 
planets,  or  at  other   periods   than    that  section   of   unbe-  universe, 
ginning  duration  which  is  embraced  in  our  own  scanty  trust  ST8 
historic  record.     The  existence  of  what  ought  not  to  exist,  theuni- 
in  a  universe  which  is  tacitly  assumed,  as  a  condition  of  Power, 
/experience,  to    be  self -revelation    of    Omnipotent   Good- 
I  ness,  is  the  perplexity  of  persons   who   desire   to  retain 
'  moral   faith  in   the   final   outcome .  of   experience    as    the 
divine  basis  of  life.     The  selfishness,  injustice,  and  cruelty 
found  among  men ;  not  to  speak  of  the  "  cruel  indiffer- 
ence" of  external  nature  to  the  happiness  of  living  beings, 
seems  not  to  consist  with  the  natural  evolution  being  a 
manifestation  of  perfectly   trustworthy  character  in  the 
Universal  Power.      It  inclines   the   sceptic  to   treat   the 
Whole   as   non-moral,    or    fundamentally   impersonal.     It 
suggests  surrender  of   the  filial  trust  and  hope  that  the 
Power  to  which  what  is  highest  in  man  responds  is  con- 
tinually at  work,  in  and  around  us,  in  order  to  assimilate 
all  persons  to  Himself.     A  universe  in  which  nothing  thai 
ought  not  to  appear  can  ever  make  its  appearance,  seems, 
in  our  first  thought,  to  be  the  only  possible  manifestation 
of  the  infinitely  good  Power  presupposed  in  the  religious 
conception  which  is  the  taeit  basis  of  experience.     Does 
not  the  rise  into  life  of  that  which  conscience  obliges  man 
to   condemn   as   absolutely  evil   involve,  either  imperfect 
goodness   or  deficient  power  —  either  way  the  final   un- 
trustworthiness  of  all  that  man  has  to  rest  on,  even  for 
interpreting  matter?     Does  not  the  existence  of  vice/and 


264 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  theis- 
tic  inter- 
pretation 
of  the 
universe  is 
Optimist. 


its  continued  toleration,  on  this  planet,  mean,  not  infinite 
goodness,  but  indifference  to  goodness  on  the  part  of  the 
Omnipotent  Power  ?  The  supposed  divine  guarantee  for 
inductive  faith  in  experience,  it  might  be  urged,  must 
be  a  Power  that  is  either  not  willing  to  hinder  the 
entrance  of  what  ought  not  to  enter ;  or  not  able  to  do  so ; 
or  else  both  willing  and  able.  The  last  supposition  alone, 
it  is  taken  for  granted,  corresponds  to  the  idea  of  omni- 
potent moral  perfection.  But  that  the  Power  at  the  root 
of  all  is  not  both  able  and  willing  to  bar  the  existence  of 
what  ought  not  to  exist  seems  proved,  by  the  fact  that 
moral  and  physical  evil  exists,  at  least  in  our  little  planet- 
ary home.  The  sin  and  the  suffering  that  abounds  in 
human  life,  and  in  sentient  life  here,  argues  either  im- 
potence or  imperfection  at  work  in  an  experience  such 
as  this ;  and  it  produces  paralysis  of  faith  and  hope, 
when  this  human  experience  is  taken  as  sufficient  proof 
of  indifference  and  impotence  combined  in  the  Universal 
Power. 

The  religious  conception  of  the  universe  is  necessarily 
optimist,  in  as  far  as  it  implies  that  the  Universal  Power 
is  perfectly  good.  To  believe  in  God  is  to  believe  that, 
whether  or  not  men  are  as  good  as  they  might  be,  and 
therefore  ought  to  be,  the  Divine  Idea  in  the  Whole  could 
not  be  better.  To  suppose  that  the  natural  procedure  of 
the  Universal  Power  is  a  revelation  which  contains  what 
is  bad,  seems  to  mean,  that  the  universe  is  not  the  outcome 
of  perfect  goodness,  but  of  a  Power  that  is  indifferent, 
or  even  hostile,  to  what  morally  ought  to  be.  This 
Power,  whatever  other  name  might  be  given  to  it,  could 
not  be  called  God,  when  God  means  infinite  goodness  per- 
sonified :  only  as  such  is  God  the  ground  of  the  absolute 
trust,  that  neither  our  physical  nor  our  moral  experience 
in  the  cosmos  can  in  the  end  put  the  persons  who 
have  the  experience  to  intellectual  or  moral  confusion. 
To  suppose  that  the  Divine  Ideal  embodied  in  the  uni- 
verse could  be  better  than  it  is,  means  that  evil  more  or 
less  belongs  to  that  Ideal ;  that  the  Universal  Power  is 
morally  untrustworthy,  instead  of  being  the  personified 
moral  obligation  implied  in  the  primary  postulate  of  life 


THELSTIC    OPTIMISM.  265 

and  experience.  Theistic  faith  expires  in  the  supposition 
either  that  God  might  prefer  evil  to  good,  or  might  be  blind 
indifferent  Power.  In  either  case  experience — in  other 
words,  our  whole  conscious  life — may  be  finally  illusory  ; 
our  so-called  faculties  of  knowledge  may  mislead.  The 
revelation  that  is  symbolised  in  the  material  world,  inter- 
preted through  moral  experience,  must  therefore  admit  of 
being  interpreted  under  some  form  of  optimism — if  it  is 
fit  to  be  interpreted  religiously ;  and  this  whether  or  not 
the  optimist  conception  can  be  fully  thought  out.  But 
indeed  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  it  can  be  so  thought 
out  in  a  human  understanding  as  to  leave  no  remainder  of 
mystery.  To  think  out  things  and  persons  infinitely  is 
to  transcend  a  finite  intelligence  of  them,  and  to  empty 
the  universe  of  all  that  is  scientifically  imaginable. 
Only  in  Omniscience  can  the  universe  be  infinitely 
thought  out — whatever  infinite  thought  may  mean.  Yet 
security  in  reason  for  moral  trust  and  hope  in  the  root 
Power  of  all  is  not  inconsistent  with  our  imperfection 
of  comprehension  ;  —  unless  our  imperfect  intelligence 
can  see  enough  to  make  it  intellectually  necessary  to 
surrender  trust  and  hope,  and  so  arrest  life  in  suicidal 
scepticism. 

But  is  this  arrest  seen  to  be  an  inevitable  consequence  Can  moral 
of  the  facts,  that  what  ought  not  to  exist  is  found  in  men,  S^oan*6' 
and  that  pain  enters,  with   a  seemingly  capricious  dis-  optimist 
regard  of  desert,  into  innumerable  human  and  other  sen-  univer8e 
tient  lives  ?     Can  a  divine  world  admit  what  is  morally 
evil?     And    even    if   a   temporary   rise    of    evil    may  be 
somehow  not  inconsistent  with  infinite  goodness — inas- 
much as  virtue,  let  us  suppose,  may  be  educated  by  the 
consequent  struggle  ;  which  may  issue,  let  us  also  suppose, 
in  the  universal  extinction  of  evil, — can  persistence,  and 
perhaps  endless  persistence,  in  the  universe  of  what   is 
bad   be  reconciled   with   ethical  obligation   divinely  per- 
sonified ? 


I  have  already   suggested  the  insufficiency   of    several  Hypotheses 
attempts  to  explain  the  fact  of  Evil  found  on  this  planet.  JJther 
Some  of  them  are  conjectures  formed  at  the  expense  of  moral  trust 


266 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


or  moral 
evil  disap- 
pear. 


An  unwar- 
ranted as- 
sumption. 


Must  a 
divinely 
conceived 
universe  be 
a  universe 
only  of 
non-moral 
things  :  or 


the  moral  perfection  of  the  Universal  Power ;  others 
explain  away  moral  evil,  making  it  an  unconditional 
necessity  of  all  finite  beings ;  or  treating  it  as  an  unreal 
negation,  for  which  no  power  at  all  can  be  presupposed : — 
not  to  speak  of  attempts  to  hide  the  difficulty  of  moral 
evil  in  man,  by  referring  it,  in  an  aggravated  form  too, 
to  the  personal  agency  of  a  superhuman  spirit,  or  tempter. 
Manichean  dualism ;  monistic  indifference,  if  not  malev- 
olence ;  an  absolute  necessity  for  evil,  in  a  universe 
which  consists  of  finite,  therefore  necessarily  imperfect, 
beings  ;  necessity  for  evil  caused  by  intractable  Matter ; — 
these  are  all  speculations  which  either  destroy  moral  faith 
in  the  Universal  Power,  or  take  away  the  difference 
between  what  is  and  what  ought  to  be.  They  leave  us  in 
a  universe  that  reveals  persistent  collision  between  two 
rival  Powers  of  good  and  evil ;  or  that  reveals  a  Universal 
Power  indifferent  to  good,  even  intending  evil ;  or  finally 
a  universe  that  consists  of  non-moral  things  only,  to  the 
exclusion  of  persons — good  or  bad. 

The  question  why  God  admits  into  the  universe  what 
is  bad,  seems  to  involve  an  unproved  assumption.  It 
assumes  that  divinely  necessitated  absence  of  evil  must  be 
in  itself  alone  good,  so  that  only  impossibility  of  evil 
ever  making  its  appearance  is  consistent  with  Omnipotent 
Goodness.  What  ought  not  to  exist,  it  is  assumed,  cannot 
coexist  with  God.  But  has  this  dogma  ever  been  proved  ? 
Can  it  be  shown  that  the  difficulty  of  subsuming  a  mixed 
universe  under  the  religious  or  optimist  conception  is  as 
great  as  that  involved  in  totally  agnostic  pessimism — with 
the  arrest  which  this  puts  upon  all  interpretations  of  ex- 
perience, including  even  those  on  which  life  itself  depends, 
so  that  suicide  is  its  logical  issue  ?  Cosmical  trust  in 
experience  is  inconsistent  with  a  radically  untrustworthy 
universe. 

Perhaps  it  may  turn  out  after  all  that  the  root-question 
here  is — Whether  it  is  morally  necessary  that  the  universe 
in  which  the  Supreme  Power  is  revealed  should  be  a  uni- 
verse only  of  things,  to  the  exclusion  of  individual  person*, 
who,  as  moral  agents,  must  be  able  to  make  themselves  bad  ? 
May  the  perfect  ideal  include  the  existence  of  persons — 


THEISTIC    OPTIMISM.  267 

with  the  implied  possibility  of  their  making   themselves  may  it  not 
bad,    and    keeping    themselves    bad  —  which    last  means  ^°tiu^luae 
making    themselves  gradually  worse  ?     Now,   a   material  sons,  who, 
world,  or  universe    of    things   in   moral   correlation  with  as  persons, 

TT-.  ,   •    i  .    ,  °  p         •     ^  must  have 

persons — things  which  exist  as  a  means  tor  intercommun-  absolute 
ication  of  persons,  and  for  their  intellectual  and  spiritual  po^erto 
education — seems  to  be  the  sort  of  universe  we  find  our-  themselves 
selves  in,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  appearance  it  presents  bad? 
in  this  little  corner.      The  moral  education  of  man  looks 

1  i kft    a.   flhiftf  Pnd    of   matter  —  wIipii    maHftf   is    rPgarnVrtpT  — * 

mean,  at  the  highest  human  point  of  view  ;  for  I  am 
far  from  supposing  that  the  universe  is  only  this,  or  not 
much  more  than  this ;  or  that  if  man  could  become 
divinely  omniscient  the  whole  difficulty  might  not  dis- 
appear, in  the  full  light  of  perfect  reason.  But,  as  the 
case  is,  man  can  interpret  the  universe  only  under  human 
conditions.  A  homo  mensura  interpretation,  or  a  Divina 
mensura  humanised,  gives  him  the  humanly  related  uni- ' 
verse,  which  is  really  all  that  he  has  to  do  with.  And 
this  human  meaning  may  be  even  eternally  true  under 
the  human  relations  :  at  any  rate,  it  is  enough  for  our 
spiritual  as  well  as  physical  life. 

May  it  not   be  that  the  perfect  ideal,  or  what  ought  Can"per- 
to  exist   according  to  the  infinitely  good  system   of  the  *ons'"  tretv 

i     ,      *?i  -7  -t,        o    i    &  •  •         m  virtue  ot 

universe,  includes  the  possibility  of  the  entrance  into  exist-  their  moral 
fence,  and  the  continuance,  of  states  of  human  beings  which  Per«>nai- 
I  ought  not  to  exist;  but  which  do  not  exist  by  an  absolute  silt,  as6" 
necessity,  only  in  and  through  the  will  of  personal  agents  ?  wel}  a* t0 
As  moral  agents,  persons  must  be  free  to  originate  volun-  divine' 
tary  acts  that  are  bad  or  undivine,  as  well  as  voluntary  !ife> exi^- 
acts  in   harmony   with   the  divine  order — acts  of  which  ti'aiiyVn- 
tney  must  themselves  be   the   originating  causes,  if  they  terpretable 
may  be  held  morally  responsible  for  the  acts.     Now  have  umverse 
we  sufficient  reason  to  take  for  granted  that  a  universe  in 
which  infinitely  good  Power  is  revealed  must  be  a  universe 
that  consists  only  of  naturally  necessitated,  and  therefore 
hion-moral,  things  ?    May  it  not  contain  responsibly  acting 
/persons;   and  even  find  its  larger  issues  in' their  educa- 
'  tion  and  moral  trial  ?     Does  not  necessitated  absence  of  sin  „ 
and  sorrow  mean  non-existence  of  persons,  and  existence  of 


268 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


)  unconscious  things  only ;  or  at  most  of  conscious  automa- 
,  tons — not  properly  persons  ?     And  is  this  necessarily  the 
highest  ideal  of  the  universe  that  man  even  can  form  ? 
On  the  contrary,  is   not   a   world  that   includes   persons 
"better  than  a  wholly  non-moral  world,  from  which  persons 
are  excluded — say  on  account  of  the  risk  of  the  entrance 
into   existence  of  what   ought  not  to  exist,  through  the 
personal  power  to  act  ill  implied  in  morally  responsible 
|  individual  agency  ?     If  so,  may  not  acts  which  ought  not 
1  to  exist  enter  into  existence,  through  the  agency  of  persons, 
.  even  under  the  perfect  or  divine  ideal  of   the  Whole  ? 
!  Persons,  or  dependent  beings  who  can  originate  voluntary 
acts  that  ought  not  to  be  acted,  need  not  be  excluded,  if 
God  can  admit  and  sustain  persons,  consistently  with  per- 
fect  Goodness.      God  cannot  make  actual  what  involves 
express  contradiction — namely,  the  existence  of  a  person 
who  is  not  a  person ;  for  individual  personality  involves 
>  responsible   freedom  to  act  ill.     If  this    seems   to   limit 
omnipotence,  or  make  God  finite,  the  alternative  supposi- 
tion— that  the  existence  of  beings  who   are    morally  re- 
sponsible for  their  acts  is  impossible  for  God  in  a  perfectly 
constituted   universe,    is  surely   not  less  a  limitation   of 
omnipotence.     It  is  a  limitation,  too,  that  is  imposed  only 
on  the  ground  of  a  residuum  of  incomplete  or  mysterious 
conception  implied  in  the  idea  of  individual  or  finite  per- 
sonality ;  whilst  the  obstacle  to  a  being  existing,  who  is 
at  once  a  responsible  person,  and  yet  unable  to  act  freely, 
lies   not  in   its   mere  mysteriousness,  but  in  its  evident 
absurdity. 

For  is  not  a  contradiction  presented  in  the  supposition 
oifree  individual  agents  who  are  not  free  to  do  what  ought 
not  to  be  done  ?  The  assertion  that  the  infinite  perfec- 
tion of  God  necessitates  the  persistent  goodness  of  all 
beings  living  in  the  divine  universe,  is  to  assert  that 
irrationality  rather  than  reason  is  at  the  root  of  all. 
the  Divine  It  is  no  abatement  of  omnipotence  that  an  express  con- 
£wierfect  tradiction  cannot  be  realised  by  Omnipotence.  A  con- 
tradiction in  terms  is  irrational :  to  say  that,  if  God  is 
perfect,  free  agents  cannot  produce  volitions  that  they 
ought  not  to  produce,  and  that  contradict  moral  reason 


A  contra- 
dictory 
ideal,  at 
once  in- 
cluding and 
excluding 
individual 
persons, 
cannot  be 


ideal. 


THEISTIC    OPTIMISM.  269 

—  which  is  another  expression  for  divine  will  —  this, 
is  not  to  vindicate  divine  perfection,  but  to  destroy 
it.  It  is  to  say  that  only  things,  not  individual 
persons,  can  exist  in  a  divine  universe.  Omnipotence 
cannot  be  power  to  realise  contradictions.  God  can- 
not sin;  cannot  make  a  person  or  free  agent  at  Tulce 
exist  and  not  exist ;  cannot  make  2  and  2  equal  to  5 ; 
cannot  make  a  circle  have  all  the  properties  of  a  square 
while  it  remains  a  circle;  cannot  make  a  once  actual 
past  never  actual.  If  we  may  put  faith  in  the  reason 
in  which  we  share,  these  are  not  possible  issues  of 
omnipotence ;  inability  to  realise  them  does  not  limit  it ; 
assertion  of  their  possibility  has  no  meaning. 

In  those  examples  the  contradiction  is  glaring.     There  There  can- 
are  other  contradictions  in  which   the  absurdity  is  not  notyhe ]ah, 
less,  but  only  less  obvious.     Inability  in  morally  respon-  person  who 
sible   individual    persons  to  make  themselves  bad  may  !8  *?*.  Jn 
be  one  such.     Is  not  a  person  who  is  morally  responsible,  person^ 
yet  incapable  of  evil  volition,  a   contradictory  idea?     If 
free  to  act,  he  must  be  able  to  originate  evil  acts.     To 
refer  the  acts  to  Divine  Will,  instead  of  to  the  finite 
person,  would  transfer  responsibility  from  the  individual 
person  to  God,  and  reduce  man  from  a  moral  agent  to  a 
conscious  automaton. 

Further.  The  essence  of  man's  moral  responsibility  The  moral 
lies  in  the  origin,  not  in  the  physical  consequences,  of  lv^d1°,i11  •1| 
his  personal  acts.  The  external  consequences  of  a  good  their  ori-8 
or  evil  act  of  human  will  are  determined  under  law  of  sin>.  not  in 
nature  —  that  is  to  say,  by  the  Divine  Power  that  is  uralissues. 
operative  throughout  all  natural  order ;  but  thejvoluntary  \ 
determination  itself — so  far  as  it  is  bad,  and  so  far  as 
there  is  individual  responsibility  for  its  badness — cannot 
be  physically  determined  by  God,  under  natural,  which 
is  really  divine,  procedure.  For  is  it  not  in  the  personal 
centre  to  which  the  act  has  to  be  referred,  as  its  primary 
or  responsible  source,  and  not  in  what  follows  the  act 
in  nature,  under  natural  law,  that  moral  evil  lies  ?  Ac- 
cordingly, it  is  the  origin  of  the  evil  volition,  not  its 
consequences  as  a  natural  antecedent  of  change  in  the 
surrounding  world,  after  it  has   been  originated,  that  is 


270 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Persons  as 
related  to 
natural 
causation. 


relevant.  A  person  whose  immoral  volitions  could  not, 
according  to  the  divine  laws  of  nature,  be  followed  by 
the  changes  which  he  intended,  would  still  remain  respon- 
sible for  the  deliberate  intention;  but  plainly  not  for 
physically  impossible  consequences,  these  being  divinely 
determined  according  to  the  mechanism  of  nature,  and 
so  withdrawn  from  man's  personal  power,  and  there- 
fore from  his  personal  responsibility.  His  responsibility 
for  badness  is  measured  by  his  power  to  make  what 
is  bad.  The  accountability  of  a  person,  presupposes  this 
quasi  -  supernatural  character  in  acts  for  which  he  is 
accountable  :  he  cannot  be  the  real  agent  of  an  act 
which  has  not  originated  in  himself,  but  which  must 
be  referred  to  the  ordered  course  of  Nature,  as  an 
effect  then,  not  of  his  imperfectly  reasonable  will,  but 
of  Active  Reason  in  God.  Thus  the  real  question  about 
the  existence  of  wicked  acts,  and  who  is  responsible  for 
them,  turns  upon  the  previous  question — Whether  the 
human  person  is  the  power  to  whom  the  act  is  finally 
referable ;  or  whether  acts  apparently  his  are  in  reality 
only  natural  effects  of  caused  causes,  and  finally  of  the 
Universal  Power?  Does  "I  ought"  mean  that  /  can, 
or  only  that  Nature — i.e.,  God — can?  It  is  impossible 
for  fallible  men  to  perceive  in  each  case  with  infallible 
certainty  the  line  which  separates  overt  acts  for  which 
an  individual  person  is  responsible,  and  events  which 
should  be  referred  to  the  divine  mechanism  of  nature. 
We  often  cannot  know  whether  the  overt  action  is  the 
man's  own  action,  for  which  he  alone  can  be  blamed  ; 
or  how  far  it  is  due  to  the  mechanism  of  nature  or  of 
society  for  which  he  is  not  responsible.  But  moral 
responsibility  is  measured  by  personal  power  to  do  or 
not  do  that  for  which  there  is  moral  responsibility.  A  I 
person  is  morally  responsible  only  for  self  -  originated  I 
volition,  and  for  external  changes  which  he  foresees  that 
the  volition  will  be  naturally  followed  by,  according  to: 
the  order  of  nature. 

Personal  origination  of  acts,  in  moral  freedom  from  the 
Power  that  operates  in  all  natural  uniformities,  I  assume 
to  be  the  fundamental  postulate  of  individual  responsibility. 


THEISTIC    OPTIMISM.  2  71 

So  that  a  wholly  physical  science  of  man,  which  concerns 
itself  only  with  the  natural  laws  of  which  the  human  body 
is  the  theatre,  overlooks  that  by  which  man  is  distin- 
guished as  a  rational  spirit — that  which  makes  him  a  > 
symbol  of  the  infinitely  good  Power,  or  constant  Agent  S 
in  the  physical  universe.  So  far  as  a  person  is  really 
a  person  —  so  far  as  there  are  events  for  which  he 
ahne  is  morally  responsible — he  is  in  a  manner  extricated 
from  the  mechanism  of  natural  causation ;  because  he  is 
included  in  that  higher  economy  to  which  the  natural 
mechanism  is  in  harmonious  subordination,  and  for  the 
sake  of  which  it  appears  to  exist. 

Another  agency  than  the  human  operates  in  and  through  Individual 
our   intellectual    and    emotional   consciousness;   but   the  moTtf. Per" 
power   to   originate  deliberate  volitions  for  which  he  is  implies 
responsible  must  be  the  person's  own  who  is  responsible  t11.iat1in" 
for  them :  he  cannot  be  only  their  natural  cause ;  nor  can  persons 
they  be    naturally  caused,    which    is    in    the    end   to   bemayniake 
divinely  caused :  they  must  originate  in  the  individual,  bad™*1™8 
if  he  is  responsible  for  them.     Anjigent  cannot  be  person- 
ally  responsible    without    originative    individual    power. 
One  may,  under  the  ideal  of  natural  necessity,  suppose  a 
universe  in  which  All  is  nature,  although  it  may  by  a 
fiction  be  called  divine  nature;    and   this  supposed  uni- 
verse may  seem  more  worthy  than  the  actual  universe, 
with  its  sins  and  sorrows  on  this  planet.     But  it  would  ' 
/be  a   universe  free  from   the  risk  of  wicked  persons  on 
/moral  trial,  only  on  condition  that  it  must  also  be  empty 
'of  good  persons  on  moral  trial.     To  relieve  the  universe 
of  all  risk  of  anything  existing  in  it  which  ought  not  to 
exist,  persons  on  moral  trial  must  be  reduced  to  non- 
moral  things.     Morally  accountable  agents  must  be  ex- 
cluded.    To  argue  that  the  ideal  of  the  universe  cannot 
be  perfect,  and  that  the  Universal  Power  cannot  be  ever- 
active  and  infinitely  good,  if  moral  evil,  with  naturally 
consequent   suffering,  is  found   anywhere  in   it,  implies, 
does   it  not,  that  "God"  cannot  be   God,  if  we  find  a 
planet   containing   personal   agents  on   moral  trial  ?      A 
circle    destitute  of   the    essential   properties   of   a   circle 
could  as  well  be  supposed  to  exist,  as  a  finite   person 


272  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

on   moral  trial,  who  is  wanting  in  what  is   essential   to 
a  person  on  moral  trial. 
The  real  So  the  real  question  seems  to  be  a  previous  question — 

wTeti°U  1S'  Whether  the  existence  of  individual  persons  is  consistent 
the  exist-     with  an  optimist  conception  of  the  universe  ?    May  depen- 
?n°e  ?f       (dent  beings  righteously  exist,  who  can  put  and  keep  them- 
persons  is    selves  below  their  ideal ;  and  if  some  of  them  do  so,  why 
consistent  |  are  not   such  agents  for  ever  withdrawn,  so  that  moral 
tic  optim-"  j  evil  may  at  least  not  be  an  endless  element  in  existence  ? 
ism?         ("Offences  must  needs  come" — if  persons  exist;    but  the 
"  woe "  is  to  the  persons  by  whom  they  come.     Indeed, 
persons  may  seem  to  involve  risk  of  evil  as  long  as  they 
j  exist.      It  does   not  appear  that  even   omnipotence  can 
exclude  what  ought  not  to  exist,  while  there  are  beings 
whose  essential  characteristic  is,  that  they  are  able  to 
bring  this  into  existence ;  and  who  cannot  lose  power  of 
resisting  the  divine   order,   and   of  excluding  divine  life 
from  their  lives,  without  losing  their   moral  personality 
and  becoming  only  non-moral  things, 
is  a  uni-     /  Is  man  able  to  show  that  only  a  world  empty  of  persons 
can   be  a  divine  world — that  the  divine  world  must  be 
a  world   consisting  only  of   things  —  including  conscious 
who,  being  things   or   automatons,  but    without    moral   personality  ? 
must  be     IWould  it  enhance  the  perfection  of  God  in  Nature  that 
freit0,        nothing  in  the  form  of  good  and  evil  human  agency  should 
selves  bad "  appear  involved  in  the  course  of  nature — that  evil  should 
— neces-      be  excluded,  by  goodness  in  the  form  of  morally  tried 
tmtrustn      personal  life  being  also  excluded  ?     Is  it  only  on  those 
worthy  and  terms  that  man  can   consent  to  regard  the  universe  re- 
imfverse?     ligiously,  as  the  revelation  of  trustworthy  Power  vitalis- 
ing a  perfect  moral  ideal  ?     Are  we  obliged  to  say,  that 
the  presence  of  a  single  evil,  even  under  this  condition,  is 
necessarily  inconsistent  with  a  religious  conception  of  the 
Whole,  and  therefore  with  presupposed  perfect  goodness 
of  the  Universal  Power.     A  divinely  necessitated  goodness 
in  all  persons,  which  destroys  responsibility,  and  therefore 
the  goodness  itself,  is  self-contradictory.     A  responsible 
agent  must  be  intrusted  with  power  to  disturb  the  as- 
v     sumption,  that  all  persons  in  a  divine  universe  must  be 
\  always  good. 


verse  whie 
contaius 
persons — 


THEISTIC    OPTIMISM.  273 

According  to  the  form  of  optimist  conception  that  was  The  optim- 
proposed  by  Leibniz,  evil  belongs,  not  to  the  actualities  of  j5?v°* 
the  universe,  which  are  all  determined  by  divine  Will,  but 
to  eternally  necessary  Ideals,  to  one  or  other  of  which  any 
actual  universe  must  conform — these  ideals  being  inde- 
pendent of  even  divine  omnipotent  Will.  They  are  like  ab- 
stract mathematical  necessities,  which  God  cannot  reverse, 
because  they  are  Universal  Eeason.  And  if  evil  is  neces- 
sarily involved  in  the  best  possible  Ideal,  then  either  no 
world  at  all  can  make  its  appearance,  or  it  must  be  one 
in  which  wicked  persons  and  suffering  animals  are  found. 
The  world  as  we  have  it  is  good,  notwithstanding  the  seem- 
ing monsters  that  appear  in  it.  For  their  so-called  crimes 
are  the  means  of  more  than  equivalent  good.  The  wicked"" 
tyrant  Tarquin  is  figured  by  Leibniz  under  Ideals  other 
than  those  in  which  he  must  be  in  this  universe — good 
and  happy  in  each  of  these,  but  in  each  case  in  a  uni- 
verse that  is — in  consequence  of  his  goodness — on  the 
whole  inferior  to  the  universe  in  which  the  Tarquin  of 
history  spread  disorder  and  misery  around  him. 

Had   Jupiter  made    Tarquin   happy  at   Corinth,    or  a  "A good 
good   and  prosperous  king  in  Thrace,  instead  of  a  cruel  ^iScniave 
tyrant  at  Koine,  the  world  in  which  he  was  found  could  necessita- 
no  longer  be  this  world ;  and  must  have  been  a  world  less  ^^eMe 
good  on  the  whole  than  the  one  in  which  Sextus  appeared,  than  that 
So  that  Jupiter  could  not  but  choose  this  universe,  even  j^J^^ 
with  its  tyrant ;  because  its  ideal  surpasses  in  perfection  Tarquiu 
the  ideals   of   all   other   possible   universes.       Otherwise  appears." 
Jupiter  would  have  renounced  his  wisdom,  and  preferred 
the  worse.     "  You  see,  then,"  Minerva  explains,  "  that  my 
father  has  not  made  Tarquin  wicked:   he   was  so  from 
all  eternity  —  in  the  best  of  ideals.      Jupiter  has  done 
nothing  but  award  him  actual  existence ;  which  supreme 
wisdom  could  not  refuse  to  that  ideal  universe  in  which 
this  criminal  is  necessarily  contained  ;  Jupiter  has  only 
made  him  actual,  instead  of  ideal ; — under  the  one  per- 
fect ideal  from  which  a  "  wicked  "  Tarquin  could  not  be 
excluded,  because  his   exclusion  would  make  it  an   im- 
possible ideal.      So  his  crimes  are  even  now  seen  to  be 
the  source  of  good  issues.      They  made  Kome  free,  and 

s 


274  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

then  Borne  became  a  great  empire,  with  illustrious  ex- 
amples of  manliness ;  though  all  this  is  as  nothing 
to  the  final  issues  of  that  eternal  ideal  in  which  wicked 
Tarquin  and  the  glorious  Eoman  Empire  are  found,  as 
hereafter  to  be  realised  in  admiring  thought,  when,  after 
a  passage  from  this  mortal  state  to  a  better,  the  gods 
shall  have  made  us  able  to  conceive  the  Whole. 
The  argu-  An  objection  to  the  religious  meaning  of  the  universe 
Leibniz"  which  underlies  this  allegory  of  Leibniz  might  be  sug- 
gested. Can  a  Power  which  sustains  a  universe  that 
contains  evil,  when  either  the  evil  might  have  been  left 
^  out,  or  the  universe  not  have  come  into  existence,  be 
1  said  to  do  what  is  perfectly  good  ?  God  makes  a  world 
in  which  there  is  evil — which  could  not  have  been  made 
without  evil  in  it,  but  which  need  not  have  been  made 
at  all.  The  inference  seems  to  be  that  the  power  to 
which  this  mixed  world  is  all  referred  has  not  done  what 
ought  to  be  done.  Leibniz  rejects  the  assumption  that 
a  universe  in  which  there  is  evil  may  not  be  the  best 
world ;  for  it  may  be  that  the  evil  is  the  natural  parent 
of  the  good.  An  imperfection  in  part  may  be  needed 
for  the  perfection  of  the  Whole.  A  general  will  prefer 
a  great  victory  with  a  wound  to  loss  of  the  battle  with- 
out the  wound.  Sin  may  introduce  into  the  universe 
something  better  than  what  could  have  been  brought  into 
existence  but  for  sin.  In  that  case,  a  world  with  sin  in 
it  is  concluded  to  be  better  than  a  world  without  sin. 
But  Leibniz  fails  to  show  how  the  supposed  best  ideal 
makes  the  evil  found  in  the  world  inevitable,  or  how  a 
world  in  which  nothing  could  exist  that  ought  not  to 
exist  might  not  be. 
Theinsuffi-  This  form  of  theistic  optimism  seems  to  make  moral 
ciency  ot      eY[\  n0^  something  which  there  is  an  unconditional  obli- 

nis  optim-  .  o  t  -I      •        i 

ism.  gation  to  condemn,  but  rather  what  must  be  admitted  as 

in  itself  good,  on  account  of  its  consequences.  It  also 
seems  to  imply  an  inadequate  conception  of  the  origin- 
ating power  of  persons,  in  virtue  of  their  individual  re- 
sponsibility, to  bring  into  existence  what  ought  not  to 
exist,  and  is  not  brought  into  existence  by  divine 
necessity.      If  moral  personality  is   originative  —  to   the 


THEISTIC    OPTIMISM.  275 

extent  of  the  acts  for  which  the  person  is  account- 
able, then  —  as  I  have  been  arguing  —  the  question 
resolves  into  the  consistency  of  the  existence  of  persons, 
able  themselves  to  make  themselves  bad,  with  moral 
perfection  in  the  Universal  Power.  Can  beings  exist, 
under  a  religious  conception  of  the  universe,  who  are 
able  to  resist  moral  reason,  or  the  will  of  God  that  all 
persons  should  be  good. 

That  the  glories  of  Eome  should  make  the  crimes  of  it  seems  to 
Sextus  only  relatively  crimes,  but  absolutely  good,  by  a  n^^oral 
necessity  which  omnipotence  is  unable  to  overcome,  is  utely  good. 
an  unsatisfying  idea.  It  seems  to  relieve  the  difficulty 
by  explaining  away  moral  evil,  or  by  transforming  it, 
at  a  higher  point  of  view,  into  good;  so  that  the  worst 
crimes  are  relatively  bad,  but  really  good.  It  seems  to 
imply  that  Sextus  could  not  help  being  bad,  or  rather 
that  what  ive  regard  as  a  bad  Sextus  was  really  &  good 
Sextus,  when  looked  at  in  all  his  consequences  to  the 
universe.  He  is  what  he  is  by  a  necessity  of  existence, 
not  by  a  personal  act  of  his  own  that  is  independent  of 
ideal  necessities;  and  he  might,  but  for  himself  alone, 
have  been  other  than  he  actually  was.  This  is  to  make 
Sextus  unfortunate,  not  blameworthy.  For  moral  evil 
is  what  ought  not  to  exist — that  for  which  there  is  no 
absolute  necessity.  Sin  is  the  unique  effect  of  the  person 
whose  voluntary  act  it  is.  Can  the  universe  not  be  finally 
divine,  even  if  it  contains  persons  who  are  able  to  make 
and  keep  themselves  undivine?- 

But,  after  all,  this  moral  trial  of  persons  without  their  The  optim- 
own  leave  ;  their  finite  weakness  and  ignorance,  on  account  lst J;?11" 

„.-,..-,,  .        ,     .  °  ...  ,  .         ception  of 

of  individual  perception  being  necessarily  only  perception  existence, 
in  part ;  and  the  distributed  miseries  of  men  and  other  sen-  winch  is 

.    r     ,     .  .  tit*  i  ,i   the  alter- 

tient  beings  irregularly, — torm  a  strange  and  unexpected  native  to 
sort  of  revelation  of  morally  trustworthy  Universal  Power,  that  of  life 

m  o,  rincillv 

The  persistency  and  extent  of  the  lurid  facts  are  still  untrust- 
insufficiently   explained,   by    the   reference   of   acts   that  worthy- 
ought  not  to  be  acted  to  the  originative  agency  of  persons,  possible ' 
Under   this  condition,  one  might  have  expected  to   find  notwith- 
some  persons  resisting,  others  perfectly  conformed  to,  the  remainder 
ideal  of  moral  reason.     The  morally  downward  tendency  of  mystery. 


276  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

which  all  men  have  to  resist,  suggests  a  remainder  of 
mystery  in  personality  which  perhaps  man  is  not  able  to 
remove :  no  individual  person  is  wholly  individual.  But 
incomplete  knowledge,  as  distinguished  from  absolute  con- 
tradiction, leaves  room  for  the  optimist  conception  that  is 
presupposed  in  a  religiously  conceived  universe,  finally 
trustworthy, — therefore  for  life  inspired  by  hope.  Pessi- 
mist doubt — which  is  suicidal — for  extinction  of  conscious 
life  would  be  the  only  escape  from  an  experience  that  may 
in  the  end  deceive,  and  issue  for  all  in  an  outcome  of  woe 
— this  doubt  is  imposed,  not  by  incomplete  knowledge, 
with  its  remainder  of  mystery,  but  only  by  a  complete 
perception  that  the  universe  as  we  find  it  must  contradict 
perfect  goodness.  When  the  necessary  alternatives  are 
theistic  optimism  and  atheistic  pessimism,  I  fail  to  find  in 
reason  a  necessity  for  the  suicidal  alternative ;  and  I  find 
the  opposite  alternative  supported  by  all  that  is  highest  in 
man.  This  is  not  demonstration  like  pure  mathematics. 
But  is  it  not  enough  to  satisfy  him  who  seeks  to  become 
what  he  ought  to  be  ? 


277 


LECTUEE    III. 

HUMAN    PROGRESS. 

The  reductio  ad  ahsurdmn  of  total  doubt  or  nescience,  im-  Sceptical 
plied  in  a  finally  undivine,  and  therefore  untrustworthy,  theSaSerm 
universe,  is  the  philosophical  vindication  of  its  religious  native  to 
or  optimist  interpretation.     The  sceptical  alternative  is  tnereligi- 
disposed  of  by  the  impossibility  of  interpreting  experience,  optimist 
even  physically,  without  final  moral  faith,  consciously  or  conception 
unconsciously,  in  operation.    This  seems  sufficient ;  unless  verse. 
it  can  be  demonstrated  that  the  mixture  of  evil — intel- 
lectual, physical,  and  moral — with  what  is  good  must  con- 
tradict the  idea  of  morally  perfect  Omnipotence  being  at 
the  root  of  all.     But  a  demonstration  of  the  inconsistency 
would  be  literally  suicidal.    If  the  sin  and  suffering  found 
in  this  corner  of  the  universe  cannot  be  somehoiv  consistent 
with  the  perfect  goodness  of  the  Universal  Power,  and 
so  with  ultimate  optimism,  the  universe  must  either  be 
meaningless,  or  charged  with  evil  meaning :  trust  and  hope 
must  be  withdrawn,  and  all  intercourse  with  ourselves 
and  our  surroundings  is  paralysed.     Life,  in  the  darkness 
of  this  discovery,  would  not  be  worth  living,  even  if  it 
were  possible  to  live  in  the  chaos.     The  chief  end  for  the 
individual,  if  one  could  then  be  supposed  to  have  a  chief 
end,  would  be,  to  get  out  of  conscious  life  for  ever — on 
the  supposition  that  it  is  possible  to  get  out  of  it,  after 
a  person  is  once  in  it — to  get  out  of  it  in  a  sort  of  Nir- 
vana, by  subsiding  into   the   universal   unconsciousness. 
This  would  justify  the  paradox  of  those  who  identify  all 
consciousness  with  imperfection  and  change,  and  who  find 


278  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

their  ideal  of  Deity  in  the  want  of  it ; — refusing  to  recog- 
nise in  conscious  life  the  presupposition  of  all  real  exist- 
ence— in  highest  perfection  in  God,  shared  only  in  part  in 
human  beings. 
Moral  evil  When  I  speak  of  the  opposite  conception  to  all  this  as 
SS^ii6    optimism,  I  must  explain  what  I  mean.    Theistic  optimism 

aii  lmpos-  -L  -■-  .  .  l   ■  1 

sibiiity,  if   does  not  mean  that  the  universe  contains  nothing  that 
the  world    0Ug}1t  not  to  exist ;  it  refers  any  moral  evil  that  does  appear 
sonabiy       — while  it  ought  not,  and  need  not — to  the  originating  will 
^ci^i    .    of  persons  who  enter  into  nature,  with  power  to  make  them- 
persons  on  selves  bad.     The  rise  of  evil  is  contingent  upon  the  uni- 
morai  trial.  verse  being  a  universe  that  includes  persons,  not  things 
only ;  a  universe,  too,  which,  at  our  human  point  of  view, 
>  seems  to  evolve  in  order  to  be  a  school  for  the  progress 
and  moral  trial  of  persons.    This  involves  moral  or  spiritual 
relations  among  persons,  presupposed  in  moral  personality, 
as  well  as  physical  relations  among  things ;  and  it  obliges 
us  to  look  at  natural  causes  in  a  higher  light  than  physi- 
cal science  does.    Above  all,  it  implies  that  human  persons, 
finite  individuals,  may  make  themselves  bad.      If  the  re- 
ligious or  optimist  conception   of   the  universe  includes 
persons — superior  to  things  and  their  relations — then  the 
^entrance  of  what  ought  not  to  exist  seems  an  inevitable 
contingency.     Exclusion  of  the  "possibility  of  evil,  or   im- 
moral resistance  to  the  divine  ideal — the  resistance  lead- 
ing to  suppression  of  the  higher  life  in  the  resisting  persons 
— seems  to  contradict  the  idea  of  moral  personality,  educa- 
tion, and  trial.     A  world  of  finite  persons  must  be  capable 
of  being  made  bad,  by  the  persons  of  vAom  it  consists.     The 
entrance  into  their  lives  of  volitions  which  they  ought  not 
to  have  willed  is  not  "  permission "  of  what  might  have 
been   prevented,   by   the  Universal   Power   making    and 
keeping   all   persons    perfectly  good.      To  keep   persons 
perfectly  good,  by  an  irresistible  necessity,  would  be  to 
transform  a  spiritual  world  of  persons  into  a  physical  or 
non-moral  world  of  conscious   automatons :    the  so-called 
persons  would  cease  to  be  morally  personal ;  their  moral 
trial  would  be  an  illusion. 
Non-moral       Persons  are  more  emphatically  real  than  material  things, 
things  must  jf  things  are   only   passive  or  impotent.      But  the  real 


HUMAN    PROGRESS.  279 

existence  of  material  things  and  of  individual  persons, —  be  treated 
two  postulated  existences  in  the  three-fold  articulation  of  *i+veallh 
j  realities, — must  mean  that  neither  things  nor  persons  are  they  are 
only  illusory  modes  of  God,  the  third  postulated  reality.  onlv 
rAnd  material  things  must  at  least  have  outward  reality  sigi 
enough  to  be  available  media  of  intercommunication  be- 
tween  conscious  persons  :  they  must  afford  an  interpretable 
system  of  outward  signs,  charged  with  [meanings  which 
science  may  interpret :  they  must  be  able  to  convey  mean- 
ing out  of  one  mind,  more  or  less  adequately,  into  another 
mind.     We  practically  find  at  least  this  amount  and  kind 
of  reality  implied  in  the  material  world. 

But  although  material  things  are — in  some  imperfectly  The  only 
comprehended  way — more  and  other  than  private  pheno-  knowu 
mena  of  my  individual  consciousness,  I  have  no  reason  outside 
to  suppose  that  things,  like  persons,  are  authors  of  acts;  tt">D™e 
which  would  imply  that  they  can  originate  effects.     With  which 
less  or  more  intelligence,  we  actually  distinguish  things  pervades. 
from  self ;  and  both  from  God,  the  sustaining  power  in  the  power 
things   and   in    persons ;    we    distinguish   ourselves   from  attributed 
things,  especially  in  virtue   of  our   being  endowed  with  rJSJJto 
personality,  which,  as  far  as  the  responsible  activity  ex-  individual 
tends,  enables  each  person  to  make  himself  bad.     And  pei 
this  agency  of  persons  cannot,  I  think,  be  shown  to  be 
inconsistent  with  the  causal   concatenation    of   physical 
nature,  of  which  indeed  the  person  needs  to  avail  himself 
in  all  overt  free  action.     Individual  persons  are  the  only 
originating  powers  in  existence  known  to  man,  over  and 
above  the  Universal  Power.     Why  should  this  resisting 
power  of  persons,  through  which  they  may  refuse  to  as- 
similate the  divine  life,  necessarily  contradict  the  finally 
optimist  or  religious  conception   of  the  universe  ?     This 
would  imply  that  an  individual  person  could  not  exist  in 
a  divinely  maintained  and  ordered  world ;  and  that  the 
Universal  Power  could  be  revealed  only  in  and  through 
the  divine  agency,  manifested  in  unconscious  things,  or 
in  conscious  automatons,  neither  good  nor  bad  morally. 

But  one  may  still  ask  how  a  universe  that  contains  But  what 
within  it  this  possibly  disturbing  element  of   individual  JJjj^g 
personal  agency  can  be  kept  by  God  in  harmony  with  its  wen 


280  PHILOSOPHY   OF   THEISM. 

maintain     Divine  ideal  ?     If  a  universe  which  delegates  individual 
themselves  p0Wer  to  persons,  to  make  and  keep  themselves  in  states 
nwrtSt-  in  which  they  ought  not  to  exist,  is  a  universe  that  God 
anc.e  t0.  .     can  manifest  Himself  in — is  it  not  a  universe  that  may 
their  divine  ^^  be  converted  into  moral  chaos  by  the  persons  in  it 
— even  while  it  might  continue  a  physical  cosmos  ;  so  that 
abatement  of  evil  on  this  planet  would  be  impossible  ? 
More  than  this,  may  not  persons,  with  their  implied  power 
of  initiating  evil,  gradually  make  the  world  of  persons  a 
world  in  which  all  persons  make  themselves  wholly  and 
finally  bad?     May  not  their   moral    trial   lead    to    uni- 
versal and  unending  moral  disorder ;  so  that  ethical  religion 
would  in  fact  be  extinguished  by  the  moral  personality 
on  which  I  have  argued  that  it  rests  ?     The  existence  of 
persons  who,  as  persons,  are  free  to  become  permanently 
bad ;  who  cannot  by  any  power,  divine  or  other,  be  hin- 
dered from  becoming  bad,  without  being  reduced  to  irre- 
v  sponsible  things, — seems  to  imply  the  possibility  of  a  world 
~  in  which  all  persons  are  at  last  irrecoverably  bad,  and  be- 
coming worse.     What  then  becomes  of  the  optimist  con- 
ception of  existence  ?     Theistic  faith  would  turn  out  to  be 
a  fallacious  guarantee  for  the  moral  cosmos  which  it  pre- 
supposes as  the  final  outcome.     The  universe  of  persons 
would  then  have  become  a  universe  of  devils — surely  not 
a  possible  manifestation  of  the  morally  perfect  Omnipo- 
tence that  is  inevitably  assumed  in  all  our  intercourse 
with  our  unconscious  and  conscious  surroundings. 
Why  is  Thus  the  existence  of  persons,  whose  personality  enables 

there  a  them  to  make  and  keep  themselves  bad,  is  the  Great 
?empeorai0r  Enigma  of  faith,  and  is  at  least  evidence  of  the  scientific 
evolution  ?  limitation  of  our  final  conception.  To  resolve  the  enigma 
we  should  need  to  know  why  the  religiously  trusted 
universe  of  things  and  persons  exists  at  all,  why  it  has 
existed,  and  why  it  will  continue  to  exist — if,  indeed, 
to  put  the  problem  thus  in  terms  of  time  does  not  take  in 
what  is  irrelevant  at  the  final  point  of  view.  The  reason 
for  God,  and  for  the  universe  of  things  and  persons  in 
which  He  is  continuously  revealing  Himself,  must  be  the 
insoluble  problem  ;  yet  without  solving  it  we  cannot  be 
sure  that  our  knowledge  is  complete  enough  to  show  that 


HUMAN    PROGRESS.  281 

a  planet  like  this,  occupied  by  persons  who  can  make 
themselves  bad,  is  necessarily  inconsistent  with  the  ideally 
perfect  universe.  We  must  first  ourselves  conceive  the 
divine  ideal.  But  this  is  not  possible ;  nor  is  it  needed 
for  human  purposes,  if  man  finds  that  he  must  maintain 
filial  trust,  and  the  hope  that  all  will  be  finally  well  with 
those  persons  who  withdraw  personal  resistance,  and  per- 
mit the  divine  ideal  to  be  gradually  realised  in  themselves 
by  God. 

An  experience  of  persons  that  like  man's  is  limited  to  History 
the  human  persons  found  on  this  planet — in  ignorance  of  JSIfthe 
innumerable  other  orders  of  moral  agents,  bodied  or  un-  persons  on 
bodied,  that  may  exist  elsewhere  or  nowhere — and  con-  JJj^^* 
nected,  it  may  be,  in  unknown  relations  to  men ;  all  per-  voived  in 
sons  in  the  universe  being  perhaps  somehow  related  to  ^erosfJ.Ug. 
all  others,  as  all  things  are  physically  related  to  all  others  gie  towards 
in  external  nature, — this  infinitely  limited  experience  of  ^e  ideal  of 
persons,  combined  with  final  faith  in  the  righteous  love 
of  the  Universal  Power,  form  man's  available  resources 
for    determining   what    the    meaning    and    issue    of    the 
Whole  may  be,  so  far  as  man  is  personally  related  to 
it.     Now,  when  we  contemplate  moral  and  sentient  beings 
on  this  little  world  of  ours,  do  we  find  that  the  persons 
who  appear  and  disappear  in  successive  generations  are 
becoming   morally   better   or    worse,  —  according    to   our 
highest  moral  ideal  ?  and  do  we  find  that  their  material 
and  social  environment  is,  through  their  own  endeavours 
or  otherwise,  in  progress  towards  what  is   better,  or  in 
regress  towards  what  is  worse  ?     Does  the  spectacle  sug- 
gest gradual  approximation  towards  what  is  ideally  good, 
or  is  the  movement  in  the  opposite  direction  ?     Is  it  a 
struggle  of  evil  indeed  with  good — involving,  as  we  might 
say,  enormous  waste  of  sentient  lives,  and  much  torture 
of  sensibilities, — but  withal  a  residuum  of  gradually  vic- 
torious endeavour  ?     Struggle  with  evil — yet  somehow  on  ( 
the  way  to  infinite  good  and  righteous  issues,  may  be  the 
form  which  the  optimist  or  religious  conception  of  life 
is  found  to  assume,  when  we  look  at  human  history  and 
■experience. 


282 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


But  pro- 
gressive im 
provement 
in  an 
imperfect 
world  does 
not,  if  it 
mitigates, 
fully  ex- 
plain 
present 
and  pre- 
vious evil. 


Undemon- 

st rated 

progress 

is  unfit  to 

sustain 

absolute 

faith. 


But  even  progressive  abatement  of  the  evil  that  is 
'  now  mixed  with  the  good,  in  persons  and  their  social 
economy  on  this  planet,  seems  by  itself  inadequate  to 
reconcile  with  perfect  filial  trust  those  strange  appearances 
which  suggest  sceptical  pessimism.  In  the  first  place,  it 
does  not  explain  how,  under  Omnipotent  Goodness,  there 
..can  be  need  for  progressive  improvement — why  the  world 
should  require  to  be  improved,  instead  of  being  perfect 
from  the  first.  For  progress  presupposes  previous.^  evil  ;^ 
in  all  development  the  antecedent  state  is  inferior  to  the 
consequent  state.  The  evil,  which  called  for  the  progress- 
ive correction,  has  still  to  be  explained.  Why  was  the 
world  ever  in  a  state  which  required  progressive  improve- 
ment ?  More  than  this,  if  a  person's  departure  from  the 
divine  ideal  of  humanity  is  the  act  of  the  person  himself 
— if  he  is  found  willing  wh&t.he  ought  not  to  will,  and 
what  he  need  not  have  willed — this  means  more  than 
physical  imperfection,  which  may  be  improved  by  physical 
evolution :  it  implies  not  merely  relative  imperfection, 
which  may  gradually  disappear :  this  is  absolute  evil. 
It  involves  evil  that  is  blameworthy,  and  that  is  not 
removed  by  improvement  of  surroundings,  or  by  expand- 
ing personal  intelligence. 

Notwithstanding  these  difficulties,  faith  in  a  gradual 
abatement  of  evil,  by  the  method  of  progressive  evolution, 
is  now  a  favourite  scientific  faith:  this  faith  may  even 
be  regarded  as  the  form  which  an  unconsciously  religious 
conception  of  the  universe  is  assuming  in  professedly  ag- 
nostic minds.  For  faith  in  human  progress  is  of  the  nature 
"of  religious  trust — scientifically  verified  by  a  narrow  and 
uncertain  experience.  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  the 
facts  must  signify  progressive  improvement  on  the  whole, 
and  also  that  progress  may  be  expected  to  persist  in  an 
indefinite  future.  That  the  progressive  evolution  is  to 
be  endless,  or,  if  not  endless,  that  it  is  in  some  future 
to  reach  perfection,  and  then  persist  in  perfection,  must 
be  reached  in  moral  faith.  Indeed  we  are  invited  by 
some  expositors  of  progressive  evolution  to  anticipate 
in  the  far  future  regress  instead  of  perfection  —  even 
final  destruction  of  all  the  products  of  progress  in  man- 


HUMAN    PROGRESS.  283 

kind, — disintegration  of  the  planet  itself,  with  consequent 
disappearance  of  all  living  actors  in  the  meaningless 
drama  that  was  once  acted  on  the  earth,  of  which,  with 
the  final  extinction  of  the  planet,  all  conceivable  record 
must  be  for  ever  lost.  The  universe  will  then  become 
what  it  would  have  been,  if  men  and  the  other  living 
beings  on  this  earth  had  never  been  evolved. 

Yet  some  who  profess  to  reject  the  religious  conception  Inconsfet- 
of  the  universe  seem  notwithstanding  to  find  a  sort  of  JJSwL- 
theistic  satisfaction  in  an  attenuated  empirical  faith  in  tic  faith  in 
human  advancement.  They  meet  the  final  difficulties  of  ?T0® 
thought  by  repeating  the  words  "progress,"  "develop- 
ment," "  evolution  "  —  which  in  strictness  only  suggest 
the  mode  in  which  the  universe,  so  far  as  it  is  physi- 
cally constituted,  seems  in  the  meantime  to  be  behaving 
itself ;  or  in  which  it  has  been  behaving  itself,  as  far  as 
men  can  see  back  into  the  past ;  and  in  which  without 
warrant  it  is  expected  to  behave  through  an  indefinite 
future — this,  too,  notwithstanding  an  agnostic  withdrawal 
of  theistic  faith,  or  reasonable  assurance  of  the  final  trust- 
worthiness of  the  evolution.  Speculative  justification  of 
expectant  trust  is  supposed  to  consist  in  "verifications," 
offered  by  physical  phenomena  that  have  been  emptied  of 
moral  reason,  and  which  may  therefore  be  the  sport  of 
malign,  or  indifferent,  or  irrational  Universal  Power.  For 
nothing  deeper  is  recognised,  by  those  who  accept  only 
this  attenuated  religious  confidence  in  the  improving 
tendency  of  man ;  and  who  indulge  in  it,  seemingly  un- 
conscious that  even  this,  so  far  as  it  goes,  contradicts  their 
agnostic  renunciation  of  final  moral  faith. 

The    conception    of   man    as    at    present    in    physical  Ti . 
progress  towards  a  happy  millennium  may,  however,  b 
a  mitigation  of  the  enigma  of  the  bad  found  mixed  so  worships 
far  with  the  good,  in  a  world  still  treated  as  interpret-  the  Uni* 
able,   and    therefore    so    far    trustworthy.      It   has    been  pr( 
called    "  meliorism."      Inadequate    as    a    foundation    for  ?ive> ;i{t:' 
theistic   faith   in    the    natural   evolution,   or    as    an    ex-  .ha'wn 
planation  of  the    mixture  of  evil,  the   idea  of  gradual,  :i11  '"".ial 
even  if  often  interrupted,  individual  and  social  ameliora-  trust61" 
tion  is  nevertheless  full  of  human  interest,  and  is  illus- 


284  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

trated  by  many  facts.  Indulgence  in  the  idea  is  natural 
to  goodness  and  nobility  of  character.  It  gives  life  to 
generous  hope,  and  helps  to  correct  selfish  individualism, 
by  educating  that  larger  individualism  which  finds  the  true 
ideal  of  a  person  in  unselfish  relations  to  other  persons, 
and  devotion  to  the  personified  Omnipotent  Goodness.  If 
those  now  living  are  not  themselves  actually  to  see  the 
best  issues,  there  is  still  consolatory  faith  in  the  millennial 
comfort  and  satisfaction  of  later  generations.  And  all 
this  because  a  tendency  towards  a  higher  ideal  seems  now 
visible ;  and  the  tendency  is  trusted  in,  like  other  natural 
laws,  even  when  the  trust  is  not  consciously  religious. 
Present  ills,  it  seems,  may  well  be  endured  by  this  genera- 
tion, as  greater  ills  were  endured  by  past  ones,  on  account 
of  the  potential  promise  of  good  in  store  for  our  success- 
ors ; — this  partly  because  we  find  the  existing  generation 
sharing  in  the  advancement,  and  also  because  the  idea 
makes  us  happy  in  thinking  that  we  can  contribute  to 
its  fuller  attainment  by  our  successors.  Social  activity, 
sustained  by  this  sort  of  faith  in  the  Universal  Power, 
seems  to  shed  light  in  the  darkness,  for  a  generation 
unusually  perplexed  by  pessimist  despair.  This  im- 
perfect form  of  moral  hope  in  the  Power  at  the  heart 
of  the  universe  may  be  more  sincere  and  productive 
of  good,  in  some  who  profess  agnostic  inability,  than  in 
the  conventional  religion  into  which  scientific  agnosticism 
has  introduced  a  needed  disturbance. 
The  New  "  Human  progress  "  is,  at  any  rate,  a  favourite  watchword 
and  the  ln  tne  nineteenth  century.  It  is  the  expression  of  a  con- 
Sterna-  ception  in  which  we  are  educated,  partly  by  the  rapid 
tively  increase  of  man's  power  to  adapt  natural  causes  to  human 
purposes,  obviously  rendering  this  planet  more  fit  to  be 
lived  in  comfortably.  It  has  not  been  always  so  ;  nor  is  it 
so  now  in  all  minds.  The  ideal  of  progress  lies  in  the 
future:  some  men  and  perhaps  some  generations  have 
found  their  ideal  in  the  past,  or  in  the  future  only  so  far 
as  it  is  like  the  past.  There  are  always  those  given  to 
excessive  admiration  of  antiquity,  and  those  who  indulge 
an  excessive  appetite  for  what  is  new.  Few,  as  Bacon  re- 
marks, are  so  happily  tempered  that  they  can  hold  the 


ideals. 


HUMAN    PROGRESS.  285 

mean,  neither  rejecting  what  has  been  well  laid  down  by 
the  ancients,  nor  despising  what  is  well  introduced  by 
modern  thought.  Affectation  of  antiquity  only,  or  of 
novelty  only,  he  regards  as  humours  of  partisans  rather 
than  sane  judgments  of  mankind.  We  ought  to  seek  for 
our  ideal,  not  in  the  state  of  any  age,  past  or  future,  which 
is  unstable,  but  in  the  steady  light  of  reasoned  experience. 

The  divine  method  of  human  progress,  as  revealed  in  Real 
facts,  seems  to  involve  a  composition  between  two  opposite  J£°{^f  past 
tendencies.  Intended  progress  that  would  wholly  sever  experience 
itself  from  the  past  illustrates,  in  consequent  regress,  J^tfcjS f 
the  irrationality  of  the  procedure.  An  ideal,  on  the  tion. 
contrary,  that  is  found  wholly  in  the  past,  and  that 
induces  desire  only  to  preserve  what  has  been,  arrests 
change;  yet  change  is  essential  to  vigorous  life.  True 
progress,  based  on  the  Universal  Eeason  that  is  latent 
at  once  in  the  mind  of  man  and  in  his  surrounding  uni- 
verse, cannot  lose  continuity  with  the  share  of  this  reason 
that  has  become  conscious  in  man.  In  all  advance, 
what  is  new  arises  out  of  what  is  old,  in  the  way  of 
metamorphosis,  not  isolation  from  and  rejection  of  the 
old.  As  Bacon  says  of  progress  in  human  science,  some 
who  handle  knowledge  take  pleasure  only  in  trying  ex- 
periments empirically,  while  others  would  make  inherited 
dogmas  supersede  experiments.  The  former  are  like  the 
ant;  they  collect  without  constructing.  The  others  are 
like  the  spider;  they  make  intellectual  cobwebs  out  of 
their  present  possessions.  The  bee  rightly  takes  the 
middle  course:  it  gathers  its  material  from  the  flowers 
of  the  garden  and  the  field,  but  it  transforms  them  by 
a  power  of  its  own.  The  composition  which  unites  the 
past  and  the  future,  seems  to  be  a  necessary  factor  in  , 
the  advancement  of  man,  who  is  intermediate  between 
mere  animal  and  Deity,  between  nescience  and  omnisc- 
ience,— whose  progress  must  be  away  from  the  former 
towards  the  latter  of  these  extremes,  a  gradual  awakening 
in  his  personal  consciousness  of  the  divine  life  and  reason 
of  which  the  universe  is  a  symbol  or  revelation. 

The  conception  of  the  progressive  evolution  of  mankind  Progress 
must  be  further  modified   by  the  consideration  that  the  fchrou«h 


286 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Regress  ; 
also  Pro- 
gress 
through 
Persons. 


Pain  and 
Progress, 
as  means 
and  end. 


Past  presents  persons  whose  intellectual  or  spiritual  de- 
velopment seems  in  advance  of  all  present,  perhaps  of  all 
future,  examples.  Persons  are  important  factors  of  human 
progress,  and  the  laws  which  determine  the  appearance 
and  education  of  epoch-making  men  are  obscure.  Who,  in 
succeeding  generations,  has  surpassed  Aristotle  in  compre- 
hensive intelligence  ?  Socrates  and  the  Hebrew  prophets 
were  followed  by  ages  of  comparative  moral  and  spiritual 
darkness.  Saints  and  martyrs  have  shown  a  self-sacrifice 
foreign  to  the  experience  and  sympathies  of  selfish  and 
faithless  successors.  Things  and  persons  are  so  com- 
mingled in  the  stream  of  time  that  the  onward  current 
is  often  disturbed  and  deflected.  The  action  of  excep- 
tional persons — men  of  genius  for  good  or  evil — seems  to 
interfere  with  a  physical  order  which  faith  might  expect 
to  find  continuously  progressive.  That  mankind  should 
be  only  in  progress,  not  actually  perfect  from  the  first, 
>may  be  implied  in  the  idea  of  moral  personality.  A 
world  of  persons  could  not  be  a  world  of  always  perfect 
persons.  Providential  progress,  not  perfection  from  the 
beginning,  appears  as  the  condition  suited  to  moral  agents, 
distinguished  from  natural  things.  And  the  improvement 
of  mankind,  as  I  think  "Wordsworth  somewhere  suggests, 
is  not  like  a  Eoman  road  which  goes  straight  to  its  goal ; 
it  is  rather  like  a  winding  river,  frequently  forced  to  turn 
backward  in  order  to  overcome  obstacles  which  cannot 
be  directly  eluded,  but  moving — in  consequence  of  the 
deflection — with  additional  forward  impulse. 

Physical  and  intellectual  evil — pain  as  well  as  ignor- 
ance and  error  —  seem  to  be  means  of  advancement 
towards  the  imperfectly  comprehensible  end  to  which 
the  universe  is  moving.  It  is  commonplace  to  suggest 
that  the  pain  which  is  implied  in  dissatisfaction  is  an 
indispensable  motor  force,  at  the  root  of  advancement 
in  human  society.  Sympathy  with  suffering  is  needed 
for  education  in  goodness.  Reason  is  brought  out  of  the 
dormant  state  into  the  conscious  state  in  man,  by  the  dis- 
comfort of  its  being  still  partly  dormant.  The  uneasiness 
of  ignorance  and  error  is  the  motive  to  discovery.  That 
we  are  out  of  harmony  with  our  divine  ideal  makes   us 


HUMAN    PROGRESS.  287 

unsatisfied  :  this  evokes  innate  divine  reason.  The  edu- 
cating influence  of  pain  may  be  resisted,  if  a  person  wills 
to  persist  in  a  state  in  which  he  ought  not  to  exist.  But 
its  divine  influence  is  in  innumerable  ways  on  the  side 
of  what  ought  to  be,  and  what  might  be  but  for  evil 
in  the  person  who  resists  that  educating  pressure  of 
nature,  which  is  really  divine  power. 

We  have  some  illustration  of  progress  through  apparent  intellec- 
regress,  in  the  past  history  of  philosophy  and  theology.  ^esSpra°s" 
Systems  seem  to  the  superficial  student  to  succeed   one  illustrated 
another  in  an  aimless  series,  without  permanent  advance.  "orthofbls" 
The  slow  and  often  interrupted  education  of  human  in-  philosophy 
telligence,  and  the  natural  adaptation  of  each  system  to  and  theo1* 
the  age  in  which  it  evolved,  is  apt  to  be  overlooked,  as    ' 
the  divine  condition  of  increasing  insight.     Yet  through- 
out the    intellectual  sects   and   systems  of   the   past  an 
unceasing   if   unconscious   "purpose"  has  been  running, 
so  that  the  thoughts  of   men  have  gradually  "  widened 
with  the  process   of  the   suns."     The  history   of   human 
thought  appears  as  progressive  development  —  often  in- 
terrupted in  regress — the  issue  of  a  composition  of  forces, 
each  inadequate,  and  therefore  while  in  vogue  a  source  of 
dissatisfaction,  the  discontent  an  impulse  towards  wider 
and  deeper  conceptions. 

Has  not  the  apparently  confused  philosophic  past  been  The  mean 
really  a  struggle,  in  which  forms  of  idealistic  construction,  [*^mes 
wherein   the   secret   of   the   universe  is    supposed  to  be  and  com-' 
evolved  out  of    a    single  principle,   are   arrayed   against  l'";^101!  of1 
different  phases  of  sceptical  pessimism,  with  consequent  forces  as 
despair  of  any  reason  being  latent  in  the  universal  move-  l*"a  of 

,t  v  o  m  1  rO°T6S^ 

ment?  Yet  is  not  the  gradual  outcome  of  this  continu- 
ous struggle — idealisms  opposed  and  slowly  corrected  by 
sceptical  criticism — a  nearer  approach  to  the  philosophy 
which  acknowledges  as  its  consummation,  with  increasing 
intelligence,  the  moral  faith  and  religious  conceptions  that 
are  intermediate  between  the  paralysis  of  Nescience,  and 
the  Divine  Thought  or  Omniscence,  which  in  its  infinity 
evades  the  philosophic  grasp  of  man?  The  practical  im- 
possibility of  permanently  subsiding  into  the  total  doubt 


288 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


which  abandons  life  as  uninterpretable,  either  as  a 
whole  or  in  any  of  its  parts  ;  together  with  the  repeated 
failure  of  attempts  to  comprehend  the  Whole — lead  the 
philosopher  into  the  intermediate  path  of  trust  in  the 
religious  conception  of  the  Whole,  as  the  alternative  for 
man.  Here,  nevertheless,  his  intellectual  activity  needs  to 
be  quickened  from  time  to  time,  by  controversy  between 
Omniscient  Idealism  and  Sceptical  Empiricism.  With  an 
irrefutable  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of  the  Whole,  he 
lives  assured  that  nothing  can  put  either  scientific  or 
moral  intelligence  to  permanent  confusion,  and  so  make 
the  fundamental  faith  of  reason  untenable.  To  follow 
this  path — intermediate  between  Nescience  and  Omnisc- 
ience—  is  to  acknowledge  men  as  more  than  animals, 
yet  less  than  God ;  through  their  organisms  part  of 
Nature,  while  in  their  spiritual  experience  they  in  de- 
grees participate  in  Divine  life  and  reason.  A  philosophy 
which  looks  only  to  man's  visible  organic  connection  with 
nature  is  logically  atheistic  and  totally  agnostic.  The 
intermediate  is  stamped  upon  all  our  experience.  We 
are  alike  unable  to  know  all  and  to  remain  ignorant  of  all. 
Yet,  unless  we  know  all,  it  may  seem  that  we  cannot 
know  any ;  since  each  finite  thing  and  individual  person  is 
connected  with  every  other,  and  is  explained  only  when 
seen  in  rational  correlation  with  every  other.  But  in 
humanly  progressive  philosophy  and  theology  many  things 
must  in  the  end  be  "  left  abrupt." 


Is  not 
theistic 
faith,  so 
far  as  it  is 
strong  and 
intelligent, 
the  funda- 
mental 
factor  in 
human 
progress  ? 


That  the  progressive  improvement  of  man  involves 
gradual  extinction  of  the  religious  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  that  the  final  victory  of  the  gradual  natural 
evolution  will  consist  in  the  disappearance  of  this  con- 
ception, is  the  incoherent  philosophy  which  Auguste 
Comte  helped  to  diffuse  in  Europe  and  America  in  the 
passing  generation.  Eeligion  (in  an  unreasonable  form) 
is  assumed  to  be  an  anachronism,  which  the  human 
race,  in  civilised  countries,  has  already  nearly  out- 
grown, so  that  everywhere  it  is  found  in  a  slow  decay ; — 
maintaining  a  languid  life  among  persons  of  imperfect 
intelligence,  but  so  inconsistent  with  social  advancement 


HUMAN    PROGRESS.  289 

that,  in  prosperous  countries,  it  exists  now  as  a  com- 
paratively harmless  superstition,  no  longer  a  real  and 
persecuting  power.  We  are  supposed  to  have  arrived  at 
a  stage  in  which  educated  persons  see  that  the  universe, 
including  man,  is  simply  a  succession  of  passing  appear- 
ances, which  can  be  interpreted  only  physically,  according 
to  their  apparent  coexisting  relations  and  sequences.  But 
is  there  not  a  theistic  faith,  undeveloped  and  unconscious, 
at  the  root  even  of  this  thin  and  shallow  interpretation  ? 

Beneficial  consequences  of  physically  scientific  applica-  Comte's 
tions  of  what  is  really  theistic  faith  in  the  physical  meaning  J^^SjS8 
of  the  world,  are  contrasted  by  Comte  with  the  effects  sive  evolu- 
of  crude  religious  ideas,  under  which  superstition  ascribes  ^'v11 
events  to  the  irrational  caprice  of  spirits ;  signalises  only  supersti- 
uncommon   events    as    supernatural ;    and   finds   in   the  J10US  the!;;" 
sufferings  of  man  only  the  cruel  anger  of  gods.     At  a  supposed 
later  stage  in  history,  Comte  finds  these  childish  myth-  t0  be 
ologies  giving  place  to  empty  abstractions  of  metaphysi-  making 
cal  thought, — words,  void  of  any  meaning  that  could  be  wa>* for 
verified  in  sensuous  experience,  made  to  do  duty  instead  eiusiVeiy 
of    the    declining    mythologies,    and    to    conceal    man's  physical 
inevitable    ignorance    of    all    beyond    the    finite    pheno- 
mena which  somehow  succeed  one  another  on  the  stream 
of  time.     But  the  age  in  which  those  abstractions  ruled 
the  human  mind   seemed   to    Comte   in   its   turn    to   be 
making  room  for  scientific  interpretation  of  physical  facts, 
— the  only  legitimate  intellectual  employment  of  mankind, 
and  destined  to  be  the  universal  philosophy,  in  the  further 
advance  of  society. 

Whether  a  humanity  sustained  by  naturally  formed  and  what  is 
naturally  applied  science  is  to  be  the  final  stage,  in  which  outcome^ 
progress  is  perfected,  is  not  fully  explained.     Perhaps  the  thisphysi- 
physical  science  stage  is  expected  to  last  till  the  process  c:d  t;llUl 
of  disintegration  begins ;  when  the  physically  interpreted 
planet  itself  will  resolve  into  pristine  fire-mist.     But  even 
before  this  catastrophe,  a  pessimist  issue  of  merely  physical 
faith,   in  what  may   turn   out   to    be   an    untrustworthy 
universe,   may  have   relieved  the   planet   of   its   minute 
philosophers,  perhaps  by  suicide  as  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  an  apotheosis  of  despair. 


290  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

Comte  So  Comte  represents  abstract  metaphysics  as  subversive 

assumes       0f  crude  theology,  in  the  progressive  evolution,  and  physical 
siSeScy^f  science  as  in  the  end  disintegrative  of  both.     In  each  step 
theistic       0f  advance  towards  the  wholly  physical  and  alone  legiti- 
slclifami.    mate  interpretation  of  the  universe,  he  sees  the  retreat  of 
abstract  metaphysics  and  of  superstitious  theology,  which 
is  all  that  he  recognises,  from  the  territory  conquered  by 
science;  so  that  when  the  scientific  victory  is  universal, 
the  universe  will  be  seen  to  be  incapable  of  being  inter- 
preted in  the  light  of  necessities  of   reason,  and  of  re- 
ligious faith  in  "every  form.     But  man  must  then  have 
lost  the  final  faith  and  hope,  by  which  I  have  argued  that 
his  interpretation  even  of  physical  nature  is  sustained 
throughout,  and  in  which  his  moral  strength  consists, 
instead  of        Does  not  a  deeper  philosophy  than  that  of  Comte  pro- 
recognising  cee(j  on   the  principle  that  the  physical  interpretations 
moraUrust  of  science,  instead  of  excluding  enlightened  metaphysical 
the  reason-  an(j  religious  interpretations,  is  itself  indispensably  sus- 
dation  and  tained  by  these ;  that  ever-advancing  discoveries  of  natural 
meanings,  and  of  natural  relations  of  means  and  ends,  are 
discoveries  of  conditions  which  so  far  express  divine  ideas, 
and  which  thus  conduct  to   the  religious  conception,  in 
faith  that  the  Whole   is   the  expression  of  the   perfect 
goodness  or  intending  Keason  ?      Wholly   agnostic  faith 
in  progress   is    necessarily   incoherent :    according   to  its 
profession,  it  is  wanting  in  the  moral  assurance  that,  not- 
withstanding intervals  of  seeming  regress,  things  must  he 
working  together  for  good  to  all  those  who  are  struggling 
to  live  in  conformity  with  divine  ideal  and  law,  as  in 
nature  and  in   man,  and  in  whose  persons  the  human 
world  is  accordingly  becoming  more  divine.      In  short, 
the  faith  in  progress  involves,  by  implication,  a  teleo- 
logical  conception,  and  those  who  really  accept  it  must  be 
at  least  unconsciously  sustaining  themselves  in  theistic 
trust  and  hope. 


culmina- 
tion of 
science. 


291 


LECTURE    IV. 

MIRACULOUS   INTERFERENCE.      WHAT   IS   A   MIRACLE  ? 

The  popular  idea  of  miracle,  as  divine  interference  with  The  idea 
the    divine    order   in  nature,   is    associated  with    further  of  ™ifacle> 
revelation    of   God    to   man,    and   particularly    with    the  connection 
enigma  of  moral  evil  on  this  planet.     A  revelation  of  God  witj&feith 
as  humanised  in  the  ideal  man  Christ  Jesus  is  regarded  ligiousor 
as  miraculous  entrance  of  God  into  man,  for  recovering  optimist 
to  goodness  persons  who  have  made  themselves  bad,  but  oTtheVn? 
who  might  become  good  in  response  to  this  miraculous  re-  verse- 
velation  of  divine  mercy,  or  appeal  to  presupposed   but 
dormant  faith  and  hope  in  Omnipotent  Goodness.    To  give 
emphasis  to  this  appeal  to  latent  religious  faith,  and  to 
its  culmination  in  a  supreme  object  for  faith,  hope,  and 
love   that  is  more  easily  conceivable  by  man  than  Om- 
nipotent Goodness  vaguely  personified, — to  make  it  em- 
phatic, or  a  signal  example  of  Divine  adaptation — physi- 
cal miracles  are  alleged.     Christianity  is  above  all  others 
the  form  of  religion  of  which  the  claim  is  presented  in  this 
particular  way.     Physical  wonders  are  more  or  less  asso- 
ciated traditionally  with  other  religions ;  but  the  one  for 
which  a  succession  of  them  is  claimed,  in  justification  of 
its  fuller  and  more  humanised  revelation — that  is  regarded 
as  in  itself  a  miracle,  somehow  superior  to  divine  natural 
law — is  the  Christian,  including  its  early  Hebrew  develop- 
ment.    The  Jews  craved  miracles;  the  Greeks  preferred 
science,  and  were  repelled  by  a  religion  that  was  repre- 
sented  as   a   miracle,    or    that    asked    men    to   see    God 
signally  a  miraculous  resurrection. 


292 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Questions 
suggested 
by  the  sup- 
position of 
miraculous 
interfer- 
ence with 
the  Divine 
natural 
order. 


All  this  suggests  a  prior  question — What  is  a  miracle  ? 
If  it  is  conceived  as  an  external  event,  or  as  a  spiritual 
experience,  which  cannot  be  explained  by  divine  power 
normal — either  in  outward  nature  or  in  human  nature,  and 
which  must  therefore  be  referred  to  God,  under  some 
different  conception,  this  raises  a  question  about  the  sort 
of  events  and  inward  experiences  that  can,  and  those  that 
cannot,  be  scientifically  explained  by  divine  causation, 
according  to  natural  conditions.  Is  man  able  to  dis- 
tinguish between  what  is  done  immediately  by  God 
according  to  natural  law,  and  what  is  done  miraculously, 
or  in  isolation  from  natural  sequence  ?  Is  he  fit  to  deter- 
mine exactly  the  latent  capacity  of  his  own  divinely 
inspired  spirit  mind,  in  its  theistic  faith  ?  What  about 
the  relation  of  miraculous  outward  events,  and  miraculous 
mental  experiences,  to  the  progressive  evolution  supposed 
to  determine  mankind,  and  to  be  within  the  horizon  of 
man's  intellectual  vision  ?  Is  a  miracle  an  event  that  can 
harmoniously  assimilate  with  the  progressive  evolution  in 
nature  ;  or  with  the  original  "  inspiration  "  which  "  gives 
man  understanding,"  in  the  form  of  Common  Eeason  ? 
Is  a  miracle  a  phenomenon  that  Universities,  Koyal 
Societies,  or  persons  who  devote  themselves  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  nature  can  have  to  do  with  ;  or  is  it  some- 
thing so  outside  nature,  and  outside  human  agency,  that 
it  must  be  kept  apart,  as  foreign  to  science — something 
even  on  which  reason  must  not  exercise  itself  ?  Is 
miraculous  revelation  of  God  to  be  assimilated  through 
some  mystical  process  ;  or  through  absolute  dependence  on 
external  authority  postulated  as  infallible  ?  Or  may  it  be 
tested,  in  the  ordinary  critical  way,  by  those  accustomed 
to  weigh  evidence  ?  Again,  is  a  miracle  an  interference 
for  a  purpose  by  God  with  God's  ordinary  laws  in  nature, 
or  is  it  this  only  relatively  to  human  experience  ?  What 
is  the  criterion  of  miraculous,  as  distinguished  from 
natural,  events ;  or  of  miraculous,  as  distinguished 
from  normal  spiritual  experience  ?  Men  differ  widely  in 
their  ideas  of  what  is  and  is  not  naturally  and  spirit- 
ually possible,  without  interference.  An  event  which 
in   one  age  is   considered  miraculously  divine    is    after- 


MIRACULOUS  INTERFERENCE.        293 

wards  discovered  to  be  a  natural  issue,  evolved  by 
God  according  to  a  discovered  law.  What  is  re- 
garded as  miracle  by  an  ignorant  man  is  found  by  an 
expert  to  be  natural.  In  the  progress  of  science,  may  not 
all  supposed  miraculously  divine  events  be  reduced  to 
their  places  in  the  divine  cosmical  order  ?  And  if  they 
can  be  so  explained,  they  do  not  cease  in  consequence  to 
be  immediately  caused  by  God.  Would  the  discovery, 
for  instance,  that  rise  of  conscious  life  in  an  organism, 
or  restoration  of  a  dead  man  to  life,  are  examples  of 
cosmical  law — would  this  divorce  these  events  from  God  ? 
Can  supposed  miraculous  interference,  if  thus  only  rela- 
tive to  man's  limited  intelligence,  mean  a  revelation 
really  unique  ?  Must  we  suppose  two  distinct  acts  of 
the  Universal  Power — one  exerted  cosmically,  conditioned 
by  natural  causes  ;  the  other  exerted  miraculously,  uncon- 
ditioned by  any  natural  cause ; — and  must  we  suppose 
that  the  second  of  these  is  a  more  difficult,  and  less 
orderly,  divine  exertion  than  the  other  ?  If  so,  what  is 
the  ground  in  reason  for  this  supposition  ? 

Questions  like  these  about  miracle  are  apt  to  arise  at  May  not 
this   point  in  our  course    of  thought,  and   the   idea   of  i^JJ5^JJ. 
miraculousness,   as    characteristic   of   events   reported   to  elation  be 
have  happened  on  this  planet,  seems  to  demand  considera-  JJ^ayj£at" 
tion.     We  have  to  look  at  their  relation  to  the  rationale  the  large 
of  the  faith  and  hope  in  God  which  is  tacitly  postulated  »ieaning  of 
in  all  human  experience.     Is  faith  in  miraculous  revela- 
tion of  God  different  in  kind  from  implied  yet  dormant 
trust  in  Omnipotent  Goodness,  or  is  it  only  this  further 
unfolded,  and  with  a  humanised  or  more  conceivable  object 
of  worship  ? 

It  may  seem  that  a  miracle  bears  on  its  face  that  it  Can  either 
must  be  at  any  rate  something  foreign   to  science  and  J,''.'^.^^' 
to  "natural"   theology — even  in  the  widest  meaning  of  science  be 
"natural."     To  refer  to  miracle  at  all  may  be  regarded  J^JJ-rac- 
as  out  of  place,  in  a  philosophical  inquiry  into  the  reason-  „i,n,s 
ableness  of  moral  faith  and  filial  hope  in  the  Universal  events? 
Power — out  of  place  especially  in  all  scientific  inquiry. 
Is  not  a  miracle  an  event  that  has  emerged  in  the  history 
of  the  planet  without  a  In1  mini  or  a  natural  catise,  as  a 


294 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  physi- 
cal marvels 
of  modern 
science, 
and  phy- 
sical mira- 
cles. 


consequence  of  arbitrary  will  on  the  part  of  the  Universal 
Power  ?  Is  not  the  miraculous  issue  supposed  to  afford 
a  guarantee  for  faith  in  the  divine  infallibility  of  the 
persons  who  appear  as  passive  in  the  miraculous  "  inter- 
ference"— what  seem  to  be  their  words  invested  with  a 
divine  infallibility,  the  "  inspired  "  person's  organism  as  it 
were  the  automatic  "  medium  "  of  a  perfect  oral  message 
or  book  ?  For  if  a  claim  to  miraculous  infallibility, 
apparently  verified  by  fulfilment  of  the  claimant's  pre- 
diction of  his  own  resurrection  after  his  death,  could  turn 
out  after  all  to  be  false,  this  would  imply  that  the  Uni- 
versal Power  was  morally  untrustworthy  —  because  in 
this  instance,  therefore  possibly  in  others,  an  impostor ; 
so  that  we  are  put  to  moral  and  intellectual  confusion. 
Again.  Are  not  miraculous  interferences  events  free 
from  natural  causes  ?  This  definition  removes  them  from 
science,  which  cannot  deal  with  events  that  have  no  natural 
cause :  science,  the  issue  of  search  for  natural  causes,  can 
have  nothing  to  say  to  phenomena  for  which  it  is  assumed 
there  can  be  no  place  in  the  natural  evolution  of  the 
cosmical  system.  Scientific  experiment  is  bringing  into 
light  innumerable  natural  causes  and  effects  hitherto  un- 
suspected, and  in  its  light  men  are  able  to  adapt  to  human 
convenience  in  unexpected  ways  the  cosmic  web  in  which 
we  find  ourselves  involved.  Applied  discoveries  of  causal 
connections  among  phenomena  are  called  "  miracles  of 
science";  but  they  are  miraculous  only  because  they  sur- 
prise men — not  because  they  are  events  divorced  from  all 
natural  causes,  while  apparent  within  the  cosmical  system. 


Are  mira- 
cles, as 
isolated 
events,  out 
of  place  in 
the  philo- 
sophical 
rationale 
of  faith  ? 


Thus  excluded  from  science,  physical  miracles  may  also 
seem  to  be  not  less  remote  from  metaphysics.  In  meta- 
physical philosophy  what  satisfies  must  involve  some- 
thing fixed  and  final — whether  with  perfect  comprehension 
or  omniscience,  out  of  which  all  mystery  is  eliminated, 
or  through  final  faith,  in  which  we  are  moved  to  uncon- 
ditional trust,  notwithstanding  its  necessary  remainder 
of  incomplete  knowledge  or  mystery.  But  philosophy 
turns  away  from  what  is  only  occasional,  isolated, 
transitory — what  belongs   only  to  times   and  places — to 


MIRACULOUS  INTERFERENCE.        295 

what  has  happened  only  in  a  certain  year,  and  only  on 
some  spot, — especially  something  long  past,  and  so  less 
and  less  impressive  in  the  present,  as  the  years  roll  on, 
leaving  the  "miraculous"  event  at  an  ever  -  increasing 
distance.  Isolated  historical  facts  do  not  assimilate  with 
eternally  fixed  philosophy.  The  wonderful  events  re- 
ported as  having  made  their  appearance  in  the  world, 
which  form  the  stock  of  physical  miracle,  per  se  look 
unassimilative.  If  they  are  neither  outward  events  that 
are  naturally  bound  up  with  the  divine  cosmical  system, 
nor  divine  inspirations  latent  in  the  spirit  of  man,  they 
seem  to  be  incapable  of  connection,  unfit  to  harmonise, 
with  the  moral  and  filial  faith  which  I  have  put  before 
you,  as  the  eternally  reasonable  attitude  of  man  towards 
Omnipotent  Goodness. 

As  events  that  were  only  occasional,  and  that  are  sup-  Must 
posed  to  be  absolutely  isolated,  so  far  as  natural  causation  no*  alJ 

.  n  .     /  ,  '.  .         ,  .        lunacies, 

is  concerned,  our  information  about  past  miracles  can  be  in  course 
only  external  and  empirical,  dependent  on  a  human  testi-  °ftime> 

"  i  >        a.  become 

mony  that  is  gradually  becoming  inaudible,  if  indeed  it  gradually 
is  not  unheard  after  the  lapse  of  ages.  David  Hume  [''vll.i"" 
argued  that  miracles  must  be  impossible  to  prove,  at  least 
so  far  as  their  evidence  depends  on  history  and  tradition ; 
because  faith  in  individual  testimony  can  never  be  as 
credible  as  the  cosmic  faith  that  every  event  must  have 
a  natural  cause :  human  experience  of  the  uniformity  of 
the  physical  evolution  is  more  credible  than  any  historic 
record  of  its  non-uniformity  can  be:  witnesses  are  found 
fallible,  but  the  course  of  nature  is  never  found  fallible  ; 
and  even  if  an  infallible  witness  could  be  produced,  when 
pitted  against  the  infallible  natural  order,  the  contradic- 
tion between  the  two  infallibles  could  only  produce  scepti- 
cal paralysis  of  all  faith,  into  which  a  thinker,  battled  by 
what  is  self-contradictory,  inevitably  subsides.  But  leav- 
ing out  of  account  this  ingenious  logical  puzzle  of  David 
Hume,  which  exercised  a  past  generation  ;  and  granting 
that,  within  narrow  limits  of  time,  the  occurrence  of  an 
event  that  had  no  natural  cause  may  be  made  credible 
through  tradition, — can  it  remain  credible  after  the  lapse 
of  ages  has  left  the  reported  miracle  at  an  immeasurable 


296  PHILOSOPHY    OF   THEISM. 

distance.     To-day,  the  records  of  mankind  may  make  us 
certain  of  events  that  happened  a  few  hundred,  or  even  a 
few  thousand,  years  ago.     But  what  can  be  their  credi- 
bility after  man  has  existed  on  the  planet  for  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  years  ?     How  must  physical  miracles  look 
that  are  reported  to  have  occurred  millions  of  years  before  ? 
Can  events  so  inconceivably  remote  be  still  available  for 
strengthening  and  enlightening  religious  faith  and  hope 
in  the  Universal  Power ;  and  can  there  then  be  any  security 
for  an  expanded  faith  and  hope  that  depends  upon  an 
event  attested  by  this  unimaginably  prolonged  tradition, 
instead  of  upon  God  personified  in  nature,  in  the  moral 
implicates  of  reason,  and  found  by  divine  development  of 
the   spirit  latent  in  man,  which,  as  inspiration   of   the 
Almighty,  gives  him  understanding  ? 
if  an  event       The  critical  temper  might  suggest  other  obstacles  to  a 
called  mir-  philosophical  recognition  of  events  supposed  to  intrude 
sWdap-   into   cosmical   order  miraculously,  or   unconditioned   by 
pear,  could  aUy   physical   cause.     Not  only   is   history  a  precarious 
tatorPbe"      vehicle  for  the  conveyance  of  information  about  any  event, 
certain        and   increasingly   so    through   thousands    or   millions    of 
notVau™  years,  but  our  five  senses  are  found  to  deceive  us  even 
by  God       with  regard  to  present  events:  men  notoriously  mistake 
naturally?   their   Qwn  fondle   interpretations  of  what  they  see   for 
something  actually  seen.     The  ignorant  seek  for  wonders  ; 
and,  not  responding  to  the  inspiration  awakened  in  "  the 
prophets,"  imagine  that  they  would  be  persuaded  if  they 
saw  a  man  rise  from  the  dead.     Miracles  are  found  in  the 
early  histories  of  religion.       But   did  the   reporters  see 
what   they    believed    they    saw  ?      Prejudice    is    apt   to 
induce  interpretations  of  presented  phenomena  that  are 
in  harmony  with  the  sentiment  that  is  dominant  in  the 
spectator:  visual  perceptions  produced  by  the  dominant 
idea   are    mistaken    in    a   rude    age    for   realities.      The 
record  of  miracles  is  in  this  way  apt  to  be  poisoned  at 
its    source.      Unperceived    events    are    supposed    to    be 
perceived:  the  fancied  perception  is  only  the  spectator's 
misinterpretation    of   what   happened.     Or,  if  the  event 
did  happen,  is  there  ground  in  reason   for   the  assump- 
tion that  it  was   an  event  divorced  from  every  natural 


MIRACULOUS  INTERFERENCE.         297 

cause  ?  Is  not  this  a  presumptuous  assumption,  on  the 
part  of  human  beings,  who  have  discovered  a  small 
number  only  of  the  innumerable  natural  causes  that 
are  gradually  disclosing  themselves,  in  what  is  perhaps 
unbeginning  and  unending  natural  sequence?  Perhaps 
the  supposed  miracle  may  turn  out,  after  experimental 
inquiry,  to  be  only  one  of  the  marvels  of  science.  Man, 
in  his  victorious  struggle  with  nature,  may  even  discover 
means  by  which  the  "miracle"  may  be  converted  into  an 
example  of  his  own  skill,  when  he  is  able  to  repeat  it 
in  an  experiment.  For  what  limits  can  be  set  to  pro- 
gress in  the  discovery  of  natural  causes  ?  What  in  early 
times  were  supposed  miracles  of  healing  are  now  pro- 
duced by  means  familiar  to  the  physician.  The  natural 
results  in  the  telegraph  and  the  telephone  are  miracles 
when  tried  by  the  knowledge  of  a  former  age.  Are  we 
justified  then  in  taking  for  granted  that  restoration  of 
life  after  physical  death  is  an  event  beyond  the  laws  of 
natural  causes  ;  or  that  men  may  not  become  able  so  far 
to  make  natural  causes  their  servants  as  to  introduce 
life  where  there  was  none,  or  to  restore  it  after  it  had 
ceased  to  appear? 

These  are  considerations  which  are  apt  to  make  men  The  sup- 
educated   in    modern   ideas   of    historical    criticism,   and  iJOsed ab" 
in  scientific  interpretation  of  the  material  world,  disposed  anient 
to  assume  the  absurdity  of  miracle ;  and  to  treat  all  re-  heins desti- 
ports  of  events  said  to  be  destitute  of  natural  causes  as  TnatuLi 
concerned  with  something  not  only  foreign  to  philosophy  '  »^w- 
and  science,  but  unworthy  of  reasonable  attention.     That 
whatever  can  be  reported  with  truth  as  having  happened 
on  this  planet  must  be  capable  of  physical  explanation  is 
their   implied  dogma.      Does  life  actually  appear  where 
there    was   none   before  ?     This  appearance,   it  would  at 
once  be  taken  for  granted,  must  be  an  illusion,  unworthy 
of  investigation ;  or,  if  it  cannot  be  overlooked,  let  it  be 
referred  for  its  natural  explanation  to  experts  of  the  Royal 
Society  ;  or  let  the  report  of  its  occurrence  be  tested  by 
experts  accustomed  to  test  documentary  evidence.     That 
it  is  inexplicable  physically  is  the  one   hypothesis  which 
would  be  dismissed  without  being  tested.     Of  course  many 


298 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Is  not  na- 
ture, as 
universal 
providen- 
tial order, 
itself  mir- 
aculous ? 


events  that  are  physically  explicable  are  allowed  to  be — 
as  yet,  if  not  for  ever — inexplicable  by  man  ;  but  it  is  taken 
for  granted  that  they  might  all  be  referred  to  natural  causes, 
in  a  true  and  full  interpretation  of  nature,  by  beings  of 
larger  intelligence  and  more  varied  experience  than  man. 

The  prevailing  disposition  to  see  miracles  in  this  light 
recalls  our  finally  theistic  interpretation  of  physical  causa- 
tion already  explained.  What  is  meant  by  nature,  and 
what  by  the  natural  causation  which  a  physical  miracle  is 
supposed  to  supersede  ?  If  "  nature "  means  only  what 
is  coextensive  with  the  ultimately  mysterious  succession 
of  physical  causes,  and  if  all  physical  events  are  super- 
naturally  caused  —  causation  by  intending  Will  being  the 
only  originating  power  of  which  man  has  rational  assur- 
ance— then  the  evolving  universe  itself  must  be  a  constant 
miracle.  We  are  all  living,  and  moving,  and  having  our 
being  in  a  possibly  unbeginning  and  unending  order  of 
cosmical  change  that  is  absolutely  trusted  in,  as  the 
miraculous,  or  naturally  inexplicable,  manifestation  of  pro- 
vidential moral  Beason.  Is  there  any  way  of  finally  con- 
ceiving the  universe  that  is  so  reasonable,  so  satisfying  to 
man  as  he  ought  to  be,  as  this  is  ?  It  carries  back  all 
physical  interpretability  of  nature  immediately  to  the 
eternal  moral  Agent ;  all  other  so-called  causes — except 
persons,  who  can  make  themselves  bad — being  only  meta- 
phorically causes,  really  the  passive  subjects  of  evolutional 
metamorphosis.  Can  any  particular  physical  miracle  be 
so  miraculous,  one  is  ready  to  ask,  as  this  constant 
miracle  of  the  universe  of  things  and  persons,  continually 
present  ?  It  loses  its  novelty,  and  ceases  to  suggest  its 
miraculousness,  only  on  account  of  its  commonness,  and 
the  unreflecting  prejudice,  that  to  discover  the  physical 
cause  of  an  event  is  to  discover  that  God  is  not  the  agent 
in  its  outcome ; — so  that  each  discovered  physical  cause 
seems  to  put  God  farther  away.  A  metaphorical  "  power," 
attributed  to  the  material  cause,  is  in  this  way  made  to 
narrow  the  sphere  of  divine  operation ;  so  that,  in  the 
event  of  a  universal  victory  of  natural  science,  Divine 
Power  would  be  totally  superseded,  and  the  universe  re- 


MIRACULOUS  INTERFERENCE.         299 

garded  at  last  under  a  wholly  natural  or  non-religious 
conception,  with  its  mysterious  past  and  future  emptied 
of  moral  meaning. 

So  the  physical  universe  itself  can  be  conceived  as  a  is  not  the 
constant  miracle,  under  order  and  adaptations  which  are  UI(mt';'ls,. 
the  persistent  expression  of  active  moral  Eeason.     Man  veUous^1 
finds   no   other  originative    power  than   spiritual   power.  &****? 
Is   not    Omnipotent    Goodness,    it    may    even    be   asked,  eventin 
more  impressively  involved  in  the  universal  physical  evo-  {t  can  be  ? 
lution,    on  which  inevitable    faith   and  hope  put   finally 
the  religious  interpretation,  than  in  occasional  miracles, 
which    are    also    referred    to   the    immediate   agency   of 
God,   in   some  abnormal  exercise  of  divine  power  ?      Is 
not  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  solar  system  a  greater 
miracle,  if  one  may  speak  of  degrees  of  the  miraculous, 
than  the  reported  arrest  of  the  sun  upon  Gibeon,  or  of 
the  moon  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon  ?     Is  not  the  gradual 
evolution  of  the  living  organisms  (man  included)  which 
this  planet  now  contains,  as  much  a  miracle  as  the  return 
to  life,  on  the  same  planet,  of  a  man  that  was  dead  ? 

The  physically  conditioned  universe  throughout  presup-  Can  special 
poses  pervading  Perfect  Goodness,  as  the  ground  at  least  miracles 
unconsciously  assumed  for  trust  in  natural  law.     It  pre-  divine  than 
supposes  a  constant  miracle — if  miraculous  power  means  all  events 
power  that  is  morally   free.      That   religious  conception  urallaw8  " 
must  be  narrow  which  fails  to  see  immediate  action  of  ar(i? 
God  in   all  that  occurs  under  conditions  of  natural  uni- 
formity ;  or  which  looks  for  direct  divine  action  only  in 
"  interference "  with    divine  natural  law.      Whence   the 
supposition  that  God  must  be  somehow  more  at  the  root 
of  "  special  creation  "  and  "  miracle  "  than  at  the  root  of 
universal  moral  providence  ;    and    more  in   some   provi- 
dences than   in  the  universal  providence  which  compre- 
hends all  particulars  in  all  relations,  including  all  that 
concern  each  man  ?     How  is  there  something  more  divine 
in  preserving  three  men  in  a  furnace  than  there  is  in  lire 
when  it  is  naturally  burning,  or  in  rain  when  it  is  naturally 
falling?     Is  the  incarnation  of  God  in  the  perfect  Man 
more  miraculous  than  the  normal  incarnation  of  God  in 
Nature  and  in  Man  ? 


00 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Must  the 
Universal 
Power,  at 
the  heart 
of  all  phy- 
sical order, 
be  mani- 
fested al- 
ways under 
laws  of 
physical 
order  ? 


Is  proof 
of  the 
impossi- 
bility of 
special 
miracles 
possible, 
under  the 


Here  further  questions  arise.  Must  all  events  that 
happen  be  physically  conditioned?  Do  physicial  events 
in  all  cases  need  to  have  causes  in  the  material  world, 
as  the  indispensable  condition  of  their  occurrence?  Is 
the  constant  miracle  of  the  universe  in  its  natural  uni- 
formities the  only  possible  miracle?  Is  it  the  only 
divine  revelation  that  is  reasonable  ?  Whether  the  con- 
stant miracle,  by  which  the  world  is  kept  in  its  provi- 
dential natural  order,  when  measured  only  by  the  visible 
issues,  is  or  is  not  greater  than  the  arrest  of  the  sun 
or  moon,  or  than  the  resurrection  of  a  person  who  was 
dead — may  there  not  be  room,  under  a  more  comprehen- 
sive Divine  Science  than  that  exemplified  in  material 
sequence,  for  an  occasional  occurrence  of  events  that  are 
not  the  outcome  of  divine  action  conducted  under  condi- 
tions of  natural  law,  but  in  which  the  Universal  Power 
is  unconditioned  by,  while  in  harmony  with,  operation  and 
change  according  to  physical  law  ?  The  divine  main- 
tenance of  outward  nature  may  involve  greater  power 
than  any  occasional  miracle.  Notwithstanding,  in  a  uni- 
verse charged  throughout  with  Adaptation,  in  which 
every  event  is  not  only  connected  under  natural  law 
with  every  other,  but  in  which  every  event  is  a  means 
to  what  appears  to  man  as  a  designed  end,  and  the  Whole 
as  designed  by  Perfect  Goodness  to  make  persons  good,  in- 
cluding those  who  have  made  themselves  bad, — in  our 
conception  of  a  universe  thus  teleologically  constituted, 
are  we  at  liberty,  with  our  weak  intelligence  and  narrow 
experience,  to  assume  dogmatically  that  physically  con- 
ditioned activity  of  the  Universal  Power  is  the  only  sort 
of  divine  activity  that  is  reasonable,  or  adapted  to  the 
Whole?  May  there  not  be  divine  design  in  occasional 
miracles  that  appear,  to  man  at  least,  to  be  independent 
of  all  natural  causes,  if  not  of  rational  order  ? 

Probably  man's  teleological  conception  of  the  universe 
is  not  adequate  to  determine  whether  physical  events  can 
make  their  appearance  independently  of  physical  laws, 
through  the  agency  of  the  Power  that  also  operates,  as 
it  seems  normally,  according  to  physical  methods.  If 
this  be  so,  it  seems  to  follow  that  the  impossibility  of  a 


MIRACULOUS  INTERFERENCE.        301 

"  miraculous "  assimilation  of  the  Natural  Law  of  divine  known 
activity   by   the   higher   Law    of   Adaptation    cannot   be  li,lli1.s "' 
proved,  and  that  any  alleged  instance  of  what  looks  like  experience 
a  miracle  of  this  sort  is  open  to  the  tests  of  experience  oftheUni- 
and  historical  criticism.      But  if   occasional   miraculous  Power ! 
events  may  be  destitute  of  physical  causes,  their  miracul- 
ousness  cannot  be  tested  by  the  inductive  methods  which 
lead  up  to  the  discovery  of  physical  causes :  for,  ex  hypo- 
thesis there  is  no  physical  cause  of  a  miracle  to  be  dis- 
covered.    May  an  occasional  miracle  not  be  an  event  in 
nature,  the  significance  of  which  depends  upon  its  moral 
relation  to  persons,  rather  than  in  its  physical  relation  to 
things  ?    Especially  if  experience  presents  a  planet  peopled 
with  persons  who  are  bringing  into  existence  what  ought 
not  to  exist,  and  for  which  there  is  no  a  priori  necessity 
— may  not  experience  reasonably  present  certain  events 
in  rational  correlation  with  this  fact  ?     Is  it  necessary  to 
suppose  that  the  Universal  Power  is  less  able  to  transcend 
the  sphere  of  material  sequence  than  men  are,  when  they 
originate  invisible  acts  of  will  for  which  they  are  respon- 
sible ?     Is   God  obliged  in  reason   to  be  conditioned  ac- 
cording to  external  natural  law  ?     May  not  divine  agency 
be  manifested  in  nature  for  a  moral  purpose,  while  it  is 
uninterpretable  by  man  in  terms  of  physical  sequence  ? 

Spinoza's  argument  for  the  impossibility   of   miracles  Spinoza's 
may  be  taken  as  expressing  the  common  scientific  diffi-  JJf^6^. 
culty.     The  system  of  nature,  it  is  by  implication  argued,  possibility 
must  be  already  perfect,  if  it  is  divine.     Its  occasional  J>.1ll1J!'1j''11' 
miraculous    modification   would   imply   its   imperfection  ;  granted 
for  what   is   always   perfectly  good    does   not   admit   of  tnatthey 
being  altered  and  mended  by  an  afterthought.     To  admit  manifesi 
a   miracle   is   to   admit   finite    imperfection   in   divinely  caPrice 
natural  law :  it  also  implies  inconstancy  or  caprice,  not 
the  divine  perfection  which  leaves  no  room  for  amended 
thoughts.     What  is  already  perfect  does  not  permit  of 
improvement  by  occasional  miracle.     For  God  to  suspend 
or  supersede  His  own  perfect  order  in  nature  is  bo  put 
a  slur  upon  natural  causation ;  as  Nature  is  divine,  occa- 
sional miraculous  action  would  be  acknowledgment  that 
God  or  Nature  can  be  irrational ;  and  discredit  of  nature 


oi 

unreason. 


Does  not 
this  argU' 
raent  pro 


302  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

thus  leads  to  universal  scepticism.  In  other  words,  to 
interpose  occasional  miracles  in  the  physical  system  would 
be  to  make  it  other  than  the  perfectly  coherent  system 
which  science  presupposes  that  it  must  be.  And  so  we 
are  asked  to  conclude  that  the  entrance  into  existence 
of  any  visible  event,  or  any  spiritual  experience,  of 
which  no  natural  account  can  be  given,  is  impossible. 

All   this  might  be  sufficient,  if  the  universe  were  a 
wholly  non-moral  universe — if  it  consisted  of  things  only, 
ceedupon    and   not  also— this  too  in  its  highest  humanly  known 
too  narrow  aSpect — of  good  and  bad  persons,  who  are  limited  in  in- 
tionUoCfeP*     telligence  and  experience.     For  in  the  case  supposed,  the 
what  is       only  sort  of  science  possible  would  be  in  the  sciences  com- 
monable monly  called  "  natural,"  which  search  for  constant  ante- 
in  a  imi-   '  cedents  of  events.     It  might  also  be  an  argument,  if  men 
Sdudw*    were  only  conscious  automata,  who  could  have  no  more 
pTrs'onst      than  a  physically  scientific  interest  in  themselves  or  in 
wholaif      anything,  and  who  could  not,  in  any  degree,  make  or  un- 
makeXem-  make  their  own  character.     But  this  is  not  the  universe  in 
selves  bad?  which  man  finds  himself.     This  is  a  world  in  which  men 
can  and  often  do  act  badly,  and  in  which,  accordingly, 
without  unreason,  God  may  be  revealed  under  a  higher 
order  than  can  be  measured  by  man  in  terms  of  physical 
connections  that  are  visible  in  nature— yet  not  inconsist- 
ent with  these.     The  existence  of  persons  may  require  in 
reason  an  unfolding  of  a  larger  divine  Adaptation  than 
appears  in  physical  causation  measured  only  by  human 
science.     It  seems  consistent  with  reason  that  the  physi- 
cal   method   should   not  be  the   highest  form  in   which 
Omnipotent  Goodness  is  revealed  even  in  the  material 
world  ;  and  also  that,  in  the  final  rationale  of  the  universe, 
the  order  of  external  nature  should  have  a  subordinate 
place,  in   a  harmony  of  the  Whole   which   may  exceed 
man's  speculative  imagination. 

The  king-  At  any  rate  miracles  cannot  be  irregular  events,  if 
domsof  "irregular"  means  irrational  or  capricious — on  the  part 
SaGraeceTd  of  the  trusted  Universal  Power.  So  far  as  it  is  revel- 
Things  and  ation  0f  Qod,  miracle  must  be  the  manifestation  of  perfect 
Persons.      reaS011<     But  j0es  it  follow  that  all  that  happens  must 


MIRACULOUS  INTERFERENCE.         303 

in  reason  be  finally  referable  to  physical  causes ;  or  that 
physical  divine  system  may  not  be  subordinate  to,  while 
capable  of  harmonious  assimilation  with,  a  Higher  Ideal. 
There  may  be  no  physically  natural  law  of  "occasional" 
miracles  discoverable,  and  yet  there  may  be  reason  in 
them.  Matter  is  the  organ  and  servant  of  human  and 
divine  Spirit.  But  do  we  know  enough  about  the  office 
of  die  physical  system  in  the  economy  of  the  universe  to 
justify  the  assumption  that  issues  cannot  appear  in  the 
material  world,  or  in  a  human  mind,  independently  of  any 
physical  law  of  God  in  nature  that  can  ever  be  construed 
in  science ;  yet  without  contradicting  or  interrupting  any 
of  those  laws?  "I  hold,"  says  Leibniz,  "that  when  God 
works  miracles  He  does  it,  not  in  order  to  supply  the 
wants  of  nature,  but  those  of  grace ;  and  whoever  thinks 
otherwise  must  have  a  very  mean  notion  of  the  wisdom 
and  power  of  God."  Occasional  miracles  may  be  in  that 
case  divine  acts,  proper  to  a  universe  that  includes  persons 
or  moral  agents ;  while  they  would  be  out  of  place  in  a 
universe  of  things,  wholly  under  mechanical  relations. 

If    God    is    miraculously    revealed   in   the    sense   that  Their  har- 
the  natural  is  finally  developed  into  supernatural  revel-  I""]limis 
ation,  then  the  superficial  antithesis  of  nature  and  super-  " 
natural  disappears.     And  under  the  limitation  of  human 
intelligence,    the    moral   response   which   the   deeper,   or 
so-called  miraculous,  revelation  receives  from  the  spiritual 
constitution  latent  in  man  would  be  the  evidence  of  its 
divinity.    All  the  more  if  it  could  be  shown  that  the  revel- 
ation we  call  miraculous  more  distinctly  unfolds  the  im- 
plicates of  theistic  faith  and  hope,  and  is  therefore  more 
richly  divine  and  reasonable,  than  the  more  attenuated 
revelation   of   Omnipotent  Goodness   that  is  tacitly  pre- 
supposed in  all  experience. 

But  if,  in  the  progressive  development  of  the  human  That  Chris- 
mind,  and  our  increased  knowledge  of  natural  causes  ,!:'"i!v1 
man  s  conceptions  of  what  is  natural  should  become  so  found  to 
enlarged  as  that  the  whole  Christian  conception  of  God  lu' //".  !i;tt- 
should  be  seen  to  arise  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  gion,  would 
nature — Christian  faith  would  then  be  discovered  to  be  the  "nt  .,nak,it 
most  natural  religion  of  all,  but  surely  not  on  that  account  umh 


304  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

undivine.  May  not  this  "  miraculous  "  revelation  of  Per- 
fect Goodness,  therefore  making  for  the  goodness  of  all 
persons,  be  latent  in  the  primary  postulate  of  all  human 
experience,  which  tacitly  assumes  the  final  trustworthiness, 
and  so  the  omnipotent  goodness,  of  the  Universal  Power 
as  the  essence  of  our  final  faith  ?  In  the  deeper  and  wider 
meaning  of  "natural,"  all  revelation  of  God  must  be  in 
harmony  with  what  is  finally  natural;  —  otherwise  it 
could  not  be  thought  or  reasoned  about.  For  thought 
or  reasoning,  so  far  as  it  is  applicable,  implies  rational 
coherence  in  that  which  is  thought  or  reasoned  about — if 
not  under  laws  of  physical  causes,  yet  under  teleological 
relations  of  means  and  end — or  of  yet  higher  categories  in 
the  intellectual  system  of  the  universe.  Probably  the 
legitimate  idea  of  an  "  occasional "  miracle  is  to  be  looked 
for  in  our  teleological  reason.  It  is  an  event  in  nature 
that  is  incapable  of  reduction  by  man  under  the  physical 
conception ; — thus  remaining  always  a  physical  mystery 
of  the  human  points  of  view ;  while  it  perhaps  admits 
of  explanation,  under  the  teleological  conception,  in  which 
the  universe  is  taken  as  the  revelation  of  Divine  Design. 

A  deepen-        Ordered  human  progress,  and  miracle  or  what  is  called 
"fgthe  °nCe  miracul°us  interference — are  these  two  conflicting  ideas  ? 
ideas  of       The  supposition  of  their  inconsistency  may  explain  the 
universal     sceptical  sadness  regarding  man  which  has  diffused  itself 
order,  and   in    this   nineteenth   century   in   Europe    and    elsewhere. 
oftheniti-  ;gut   may   no^   an    honestly   agnostic  spirit  illustrate  in 
acuious-      this  instance  too,  how  critical  negation  is  really  a  factor 
nessofthe  m   progressive   movement   towards   a   larger    affirmative 
faith  ?      For   is   not   the   nineteenth   century,  in  conse- 
quence  of   this   negative   criticism,  closing  with  a  pro- 
founder  sense  than  the  world  has  before  reached,  at  once 
of  the  universality  of  physical  law,  and  of  miraculousness 
at  the  root  of  the  universe  ?     Do  we  not  begin  to  see  that 
the  final  presupposition  of  Omnipotent  Goodness  at  the 
centre  is  not  subversion  of  physical  order  and  science,  but 
rather  its  foundation  and  its  life  ?     Visible  nature  appears 
no  longer  on  the  hollow  final  foundation  of  a  dogmatical 
physical  uniformity.     Beneath   this   otherwise   uncertain 


MIRACULOUS  INTERFERENCE.        305 

ground,  it  is  further  interpretable  as  the  constant  prov- 
idence of  perfect  moral  reason  —  the  providential  pro- 
cedure having  for  its  chief  end,  at  our  point  of  view,  the 
education  of  persons  according  to  an  order  that  is  in  its 
last  conception  divine,  the  temporal  procedure  in  the 
school  of  God  for  the  development  and  trial  of  spirit 
in  man.  The  universal  cosmical  order  merges  at  last 
in  universal  divine  adaptation  of  the  material  world  to 
moral  agents,  for  advancement  or  recovery  of  their  ideal. 


306 


LECTUEE    V. 


THE   FINAL   VENTURE   OF   THELSTIC    FAITH. 


Philosophy- 
is  medita- 
tion upon 
Death. 


The  final 
problem, 
as  related 
to  the 
death  of 
Men. 


Philosophy,  according  to  Plato,  is  meditation  upon  death. 
This  is  the  voice  of  poets  and  thinkers  outside  and  within 
Christendom.  That  expectation  of  death  makes  human 
life  miserable,  and  that  this  misery  may  be  removed  by 
the  philosophy  which  sees  only  the  peace  of  eternal  sleep 
in  the  dissolution  of  the  body,  is  the  key-note  of  the  most 
sublime  poem  in  Roman  literature.  The  final  destiny  of 
men  has  attracted  contemplative  thought  in  the  succes- 
sive generations  which  have  passed  into  the  darkness, 
asking  whither  they  were  going  ?  The  books  which  record 
human  conjectures  about  the  secret  kept  by  death  might 
form  a  library.  They  belong  to  ancient,  medieval,  and 
modern  times,  in  all  countries  and  races.  Among  our 
countrymen,  it  is  the  theme  of  the  "  Cypress  Grove  "  of 
William  Drummond,  the  pensive  poet  of  Hawthornden. 
The  meditative  tenderness  of  Wordsworth's  "  Essay  upon 
Epitaphs  "  presents  death  in  one  aspect,  taken  at  a  higher 
point  in  his  "  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality." 
Moral  faith  in  the  immortality  of  man,  tempered  by 
modern  doubt,  is  the  note  of  Tennyson  in  "  In  Memoriam." 
Isaac  Taylor's  '  Theory  of  Another  Life '  is  an  ingenious 
exercise  of  imagination  in  anticipation  of  that  which 
follows  death. 

Death  is  directly  concerned  with  the  final  human  pro- 
blem as  regards  one  only  of  its  three  data — namely,  the 
conscious  ego  —  distinguished  from  outward  things  and 
from  God.    Am  I  to  be  finally  and  for  ever  self-consciously 


THE    FINAL    VENTURE    OF    THEISTIC    FAITH.       307 

distinct  from  unconscious  Matter,  and  from  the  Universal 
Power  ?  Am  I  so  mixed  up  with  the  material  world,  in 
which  I  find  myself  now  incarnate,  that  I  must  share  the 
fate  of  my  body,  and  cease  for  ever  to  be  conscious  as  soon 
as  I  have  ceased  at  death  to  be  visibly  incarnate  ?  The 
world,  of  which  my  bodily  organism  is  a  part,  is  the 
subject  of  constant  metamorphoses.  Am  I  only  one  of 
the  ephemeral  metamorphoses  into  which  ever-changing 
Matter  naturally  resolves  itself  ?  Can  I  be  only  this,  if 
I  find  my  invisible  self  distinguished  by  a  unique  per- 
sistent identity  through  all  changes  of  this  embodied 
life  ?  Our  bodies  and  outward  things  are  in  constant 
llux :  "  identity  "  applies  to  them  only  metaphorically.  A 
human  ego  of  half  a  century  ago  is  connected  with  the 
human  ego  of  to-day,  in  another  way  than  that  in  which 
his  body  now  is  connected  with  his  body  of  half  a 
century  ago.  After  a  faint,  or  a  dreamless  sleep,  we 
cannot  but  connect,  as  numerically  one,  the  ego  before 
those  intervals  of  unconsciousness  and  the  ego  after  them. 
Sanity  requires  that  I  should  practically  acknowledge  this 
unique  persistent  sameness.  And  we  are  obliged  to  as- 
sume that  human  persons,  in  addition  to  this  imperfectly 
comprehended  difference  between  themselves  and  things, 
have  a  mysterious  power  of  making  themselves  bad,  of 
which  one  finds  no  trace  in  bodies. 

All  this  raises  the  supreme  human  question  : — What  is  Does  the 
the  relation  of  this  now  conscious  person — this  persistent  consclous 
subject  of  ever-changing  pains  and  pleasures — this  creator  finally 
of   good  or  evil  acts — to  the  dissolution  of   his   visible  cease  to  be 
organism?     Is  the  self-conscious  ego  transitory,  so  that  at  withthe 

dissolution 

of  his 

body  .' 


death,  along  with  the  organism  with  which  life  is  now 
in  constant  correlation,  the  hitherto  continuous  self- 
consciousness  also  dissolves  ?  Do  human  beings  cease  for 
ever  to  be  conscious,  when  they  cease  to  signify  their 
conscious  activity  visibly  ?  On  this  planet  alone  one  finds 
hundreds  of  millions  of  conscious  persons  in  each  genera- 
tion signifying  to  one  another  their  invisible  conscious 
activity — some  of  them  showing  the  signs  only  for  a  few 
hours,  a  few  it  may  be  for  a  hundred  years — after  which 
the  organism  dissolves,  and  there  is  no  more  any  sign. 


308 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


The  un- 
iqueness 
of  the  self- 
conscious 
person,  in 
contrast 
with  the 
perennial 
change  in 
nature. 


Can  an 
atheist 
reasonably 
believe  in 


Are  there  any  facts,  which  the  living  may  recognise, 
which  show  that  moral  agents  may  not  be  so  involved 
in  the  metamorphoses  of  nature  as  that  the  dissolution  of 
his  body  in  death  must  mean  the  final  cessation  of  the 
self-conscious  person?  There  is  at  any  rate  something 
unique  in  self-conscious  personality.  Persons  are  under 
spiritual  relations,  as  well  as  under  physical  relations; 
and,  by  their  individual  personality,  they  are  distinguished 
both  from  the  Universal  Power  and  from  outward  things. 
Can  we  reasonably  think  of  moral  agents  and  non-moral 
things  as  alike  in  destiny, — yet  unlike  in  the  unique 
rational  consciousness,  continuous  identity,  and  moral 
responsibility,  which  only  persons  possess,  during  this 
ephemeral  embodied  existence?  Must  we  say,  alike  of 
men  and  brutes,  that  "as  the  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the 
other;  yea,  they  have  all  one  breath;  so  that  a  man 
hath  no  pre-eminence  above  a  beast;  for  all  is  vanity. 
All  go  unto  one  place ;  all  are  of  the  dust,  and  all  turn 
to  dust  again  "  ?  Can  we  even  prove  that  physical  death 
is  the  final  extinction  of  all  animals  except  man  ?  Does 
theistic  faith,  in  the  full  development  of  which  we  can 
really  enjoy  conscious  life  —  does  this  final  moral  trust 
justify  us  in  anticipating,  not  only  future  events  in  this 
world,  but  also  persistent  personal  consciousness  after 
bodily  dissolution  ?  Without  an  implied  moral  faith  in  the 
moral  trustworthiness  of  the  Universal  Power,  we  have 
no  assurance  about  anything  future:  our  most  natural 
anticipations  may  all  be  put  to  confusion:  we  cannot 
count  on  order,  or  on  adaptation,  in  nature.  It  is  by 
trusting  ethical  omnipotence,  with  all  that  this  includes, 
that  we  can  know  and  act  now.  Does  this  faith,  in  which 
human  life  is  rooted,  also  involve  reasonable  hope  that 
physical  death  will  not  make  an  end  of  personal  life ;  and 
that  something  more  manifestly  divine  than  the  strangely 
mixed  experience  of  the  universe  we  have  on  this  planet 
may  be  expected  ?  Our  bodies  are  not  our  unique  person- 
ality :  they  are  conscious  persons  as  revealed  to  the  senses. 

Can  an  atheist  reasonably  expect  to  live  after  his 
physical  death  ?  I  would  put  a  previous  question, — Can 
atheists,  with  unreason  only  recognised  at  the  root  of  All, 


THE    FINAL    VENTURE    OF    THEISTIC    FAITH.       309 

consistently  have  faith  in  any  future  event,  either  before  personal 
or  after  death  ?     For  knowledge  of  God  is  trust  in  uni-  ^ea^ 
versally  active  moral  reason,  and  therefore  trust  in  Omni-  death,  or 
potent  Goodness  as  the  Universal  Power;  but  apart  from  j^eedbe- 
this  ultimate  moral  trustworthiness  at  the  heart  of  the  anything 
whole,  the  previsions  of  science,  and  the  expectations  of  ]^y?nd  the 
daily   life,    have   no   inherent   reason.      What   is    called  themo-° 
"scientific   verification  "  presujiposes   the   divine    reason-  ment- 
ableness  of  trust  in  natural  analogies  and  uniformity.     A 
suspected  witness  cannot  verify.    The  logical  atheist,  whose 
atheism  is  virtual  rejection  of  this  innate  interpretability 
•of  nature,  is,  if  consistent,  incapable  of  prevision :  at  his 
point  of  view,  the  universe  may  become  chaotic  to-morrow, 
and   unfit    to   be    reasoned   about  or  dealt  with  in  any 
practical  way.     An  atheistic  universe  has  no  ethical  root. 
Its  future  may  be  universal  hell.     Fear  would  then  make 
final  cessation  of  conscious  life  the  supreme  hope.     But 
under  a  more  intrepid  agnosticism,  even  the  negative  hope 
of  endless  unconsciousness  is  as  little  to  be  depended  on 
as  any  other  hope,  under  an  untrustworthy  Power.     Hope- 
ful expectation  is  essentially  theistic,  because  theism  is 
simply  the  principle  of  omnipotent  moral  reasonableness 
or  goodness,  articulately  applied  to  the  universe. 

The  infinite  interest  of  the  final  question  about  this  Thereia- 
life  of  mixed  good  and  evil,  in  which  men  now  find  f^;0^!1 
themselves,  disappears,  on  the  conjecture  that — after  an  inference 
interval  of  a  few  hours  or  a  hundred  years  on  this  planet 
— all  persons  are  transformed  into  unconscious  things. 
Living  habitually  under  this  pathetic  conception,  men 
subside  into  sadness,  if  they  are  thoughtful;  or  into 
secular  indifference,  if,  like  the  majority,  they  are  unre- 
flecting. I  have  said  that  at  least  an  unconscious  theistic 
faith  is  indispensable  for  indulgence  in  expectation  of 
events  before  death ;  and  the  idea  of  moral  obligation 
remains,  whether  persons,  morally  obliged  to  be  good, 
exist  only  between  birth  and  death  or  for  a  longer  time. 
But  the  religious  conception  of  the  universe  draws  its 
sublime  interest  from  an  expectation  that  we  are  destined 
to  continue  during  more  than  the  momentary  dream-life 
that  depends  on  the  mortal  body.     Is  human  immortality 


to  the  linal 
moral 


to  a  con 
tinuance  of 
conscious 


310  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

foreshadowed  in  the  character  of  the  Universal  Power; 
notwithstanding  the  strangely  mixed  state  of  this  corner 
of  the  universe,  and  its  apparently  capricious  distribution 
of  happiness  and  pain  ? 
Analogies  But  while  all  expectation  is  essentially  theistic  faith, 
and  scientific  expectation  is  more  intelligent  faith,  there 
is  a  difference  between  scientific  prevision  of  the  temporal 
personal  future  within  the  present  world,  and  prevision  of  life  after 
physical'  the  natural  dissolution  of  the  organism,  through  which 
death  and  the  person  no w  reveals  himself  to  other  persons,  and  lives 
ficiency?1 "  incarnate  on  this  planet,  in  his  own  place  and  time.  If 
the  conscious  individual  ego  is  a  unique  sort  of  being  in 
the  universe,  the  death  of  the  organism,  to  which  his 
personal  life  is  now  in  correlation,  is  also  a  unique  fact, 
in  the  sense  that  no  adequate  analogy  to  his  own  death 
can  be  found  within  the  present  experience  of  any 
living  man.  No  doubt,  life  in  human  persons  has  already 
persisted  through  critical  changes :  all  animal  life  illus- 
trates this.  Life  in  the  womb,  and  life  after  birth ;  life 
with  the  body  entire,  and  life  after  the  body  has  been 
deprived  by  accident  or  otherwise  of  important  organs — 
these  are  familiar  changes,  after  which  the  conscious  per- 
son is  still  found  self-conscious.  In  dreamless  sleep,  or  in 
a  swoon,  the  continuity  of  the  conscious  life  seems  to  be 
interrupted.  "  Sleep,"  says  Sir  Thomas  More, "  is  the  brother 
of  death,  in  which  we  seem  to  die  without  really  dying." 
Shakespeare  conceives  sleep  as  the  "  death  of  each  day's 
life  " ;  and  "  all  our  little  lives  are  rounded  with  a  sleep." 
But  in  this  sufficient  analogy  with  death  is  wanting.  The 
persistency  of  the  person  is  here  verified :  the  broken 
consciousness  returns  into  continuity  with  its  past :  mem- 
ory can  cross  the  gulf  of  this  temporary  death  :  moreover, 
the  organism  of  the  person  was  undissolved,  instead  of 
sharing  in  the  unconsciousness  of  sleep  by  a  temporary 
physical  dissolution.  Analogies  of  animal  transformation 
— the  caterpillar  transformed  into  the  butterfly,  for  in- 
stance— are  all  found  inadequate,  when  compared  with 
the  visible  consequences  of  physical  death  in  man. 
Unique-  The  probable  effect  of  the  death  of  a  person's  physical 

nessofthe  organism  upon  his  self-conscious  and  percipient  life  can 


THE    FINAL    VENTURE    OF    THEISTIC    FAITH.       311 

hardly  be  determined  by  facts  like  these.     For  the  pro-  phenome- 
blem  which  the  dissolution  of  the  human  body  presents  JJJJ^'g] 
is  absolutely  singular.     Living  men  cannot  settle  it  by  death :  it  is 
experiment,    as    they  can   determine    by  experiment  the  j'°reisu  to 

ni  [>        •  i,ii-i  the  expen- 

outcome  or  sleep  or  a  trance;  tor  m  order  to  do  this  they  enceoi' 
would  need  to  die,  and  have  personal  experience  of  the  persona 
issue.     Nor  has  the  enigma  been  solved  by  communication  thisplanet; 
with  persons  who  have  died :  one  effect  of  death  seems  to  and  [t 
be  to  withdraw  the  material  medium  of  communication  destroy 
between  the  living  and  the   dead.     The   issue   of   their  our  only 
death  is  not  communicated  by  dead  persons ;  and  no  per-  COmmuni- 
son  now  living  has  made  the  experiment  of  dying  and  cation  with 
returning  into  this   embodied  life.     Alleged  apparitions 
and  messages  from  departed  persons  give  no  light.      If 
faith  in   the  continued  consciousness  of  physically  dead 
persons  after  their  death  must  depend  upon  these  sources, 
it  seems  to  have  no  support  in  evidence. 

Yet  it  does  not  follow  that  the  hope  that  death  is  not  Faith  in 
the  final  end  of  individual  persons  is  baseless.     No  doubt  gfJJjjJjJSJ 
the  case  is  not  fully  analogous  to,  or  illustrated  in,  theis-  conseious- 
tically  sustained   ordinary  expectation,  or   previsions  in  JJ^hhT 
natural  science ;  its  singularity  lies  partly  in  this — that  not  on  that 
the  physical  medium  of   verification   is  naturally   with-  J^J^y 
drawn  in  death.     But  to  assume,  without  proof,  that  a  baseless, 
conscious  person  is  so  dependent  for  his  conscious  life 
upon  his  present  organism,  that  his  conscious  life  must 
cease  when  this  organism  dissolves,  is  to  beg  the  question 
we  are  meditating  about.     The  question  is,  whether  the 
visible  dissolution  necessarily  signifies  the  invisible  dis- 
solution ;  and  it  will  not  serve  the  interest  of  reason  to 
take  this  for  granted — without  permitting  any  mode  of 
determining   the   probability   other   than   the   physically 
scientific  mode. 

For  one  thing,  we  find  a  widespread  faith,  in  all  ages,  it  is,  in  in- 
and  among  various  nations  and  races  of  men,  that  human  jgJJJE^ 
persons  somehow  survive  the  physical   crisis    of   organic  conception, 
dissolution.     Articulate  conceptions  of  what  follows  death  i^'1111011 
doubtless  vary  widely,  in  the  traditions  and  religions  of 
mankind,  and  in  the  fancies  of  individuals.     But  while 


312 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Genuine 
Common 
Faith  the 
divine  in- 
spiration 
which 
"  giveth 
under- 
standing.' 


Scientific 
prevision, 


there  has  usually  been  a  sceptical  minority,  the  mass  of 
mankind,  in  the  ancient,  medieval,  and  modern  world 
— in  the  East  and  the  West,  in  Egypt,  Persia,  India, 
Greece,  and  Eome — Jews,  Mohammedans,  Christians — 
entertain  an  expectation  that  persons  persist  after  death, 
whether  in  a  lower  and  more  attenuated  or  in  a  nobler 
life  than  that  experienced  before  they  died.  The  con- 
ception in  most  cases  implies  that  the  post  mortem  exist- 
ence is  not  wholly  unembodied ;  that  the  person  retains, 
or  gains  after  death,  some  intangible  ghostly  form  of 
embodiment ;  or  else,  after  an  interval  of  unembodiment, 
recovers  physical  relations  in  some  worthier  form  —  a 
"  body  spiritual "  instead  of  the  present  limiting  body,  in 
and  through  which  spiritual  consciousness  has  on  earth 
become  individual.  That  a  spiritual  body  succeeds  the 
natural  body  is  the  faith  of  most  Christians. 

That  all  genuine  Common  Faith,  or  the  common  rational 
sense  of  mankind,  is  divinely  trustworthy,  because  inspired 
by  God,  is  a  postulate  on  which  science  itself  rests,  in 
all  its  previsive  inferences.  Scientific  verification,  as  I 
have  throughout  argued,  is  finally  unconscious  religious 
trust.  It  has  been  scientifically  verified  that  the  sun 
will  rise  to-morrow  ;  but  till  the  sun  shall  have  actually 
risen,  the  assertion  only  expresses  faith  in  the  divine 
natural  order.  All  expectation,  scientific  or  common,  is 
so  far  a  leap  in  the  dark ;  it  is  taken  without  the  light  of 
sense.  The  expected  event  has  not  the  proof  afforded  by 
felt  perception  till  the  event  has  happened.  If  sense  were 
our  only  light,  it  would  follow  that  we  must  remain  in  the 
darkness  of  doubt  about  every  future  event.  To  be  prac- 
tically consistent,  if  we  insist  that  that  only  can  be 
reasonable  into  which  no  ingredient  of  moral  venture 
enters,  we  must  cease  to  live ;  for  life  depends  upon 
expectation,  and  expectation  postulates  faith  in  the  divine 
reasonableness  of  the  universe ;  which  implies  that  men 
will  not  be  finally  put  to  scientific  confusion  by  reasonable 
submission  to  this  moral  faith.  If  they  must,  the  uni- 
verse would  be  undivine  illusion. 

The  widespread  faith  in  personal  persistence  through 
and  after  physical   death,  is  incapable  of   experimental 


THE    FINAL    VENTURE    OF    THEISTIC    FAITH.       313 

verification  to  those  who  have  not  died.     But  is  it  less  as  well  as 
irrational  to  resist  it,  merely  on  the  ground  that  it  is  only  the.  exPec" 
unverified  faith,  and  not  realisation,  than  it  would  be  to  eventiie11 
resist  the  still  unrealised  expectation  that  the  sun  will  rise  memories 
to-morrow,  or  be  eclipsed  the  day  after,  merely  on  the  ^involve 
ground  that  this  too  is  as  yet  only  faith  and  not  fact  ?  1;lith  I11 
For  no  one  can  to-day  see  the  sun  rising  to-morrow,  or  unseen? 
its  eclipse  the  day  after.     The  expectation  is  reasonable 
faith,  not  yet  confirmed  by  the  event  believed  in.     Actual 
sense  is  not  the  measure  of   what  it  is   reasonable,  and 
therefore  philosophical,  to  believe  or  to  disbelieve. 

It  is  granted  that  there  may  be  reason  for  the  faith  May  there 
implied  in  our  ordinary  expectations  of  natural  events ;  nrot  \\ rea" 
notwithstanding   that,  it  is   only  faith.     To   refuse   this  in  the  ex- 
would  be  to  reduce  human  reason  to  narrow  dimensions  pectation 
indeed,  or  rather  to  extinguish  it  altogether.    To  condemn,  ufeafter 
as  necessarily  irrational,  the  widespread  expectation,  that  de**h>  as 
consciousness  will  persist  after  its  visible  organism  has  Jn^cientific 
been   dissolved   by  death,  may  after  all  be  due  to  dog-  prevision? 
matic  narrowness.     Actual  sense  is  acknowledged  not  to 
be  the  measure  of  reasonable  judgments  about  physical 
nature ;  and  faith  in  physical  nature  is  not  necessarily  the 
measure    of    reasonable    faith    regarding    the    destiny  of 
persons,  after  they  are  physically  dead.     May  there  not 
be  more  in   earth   and   heaven    than  is   recognised  in   a 
wholly  physical  philosophy  ?     A  wholly  physical  may  be 
an  unphilosophical  philosophy. 

Look   more   deeply  into  the  larger  faith.     It  may  be  Critical 
criticised  by  physical,  by  metaphysical,  or  by  moral  tests.  te8ta 
Take  each  of  these  in  turn  as  criteria  of  this  altogether 
unique  sort  of  anticipation. 

The  physical  presumption,  that  conscious  personal  life  An  exclu- 

finally   ceases,    when,    by   the   death   of   the   manifesting  'XafVnow- 

medium,  it  ceases  to  prove  its  continuance  physically,  is  ledge  of 

strong  under  wholly  natural  science.     If  reasonable  faith  death> a  \ 

&  -i  t>  '  i  presented 

m   post   mortem   self  -  consciousness   must    be   dependent  in  the  dis- 

on  what  is  seen,  or  on  physical  inference  from  what  is  s,»1''ti,)" 

seen,    the  idea   of  personal  persistence  looks  illusory — a 


314 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


organism, 
affords, 
per  se,  no 
reason  for 
expecting 
survival 
of  the 
conscious 
person. 


Difficulties 
that  beset 
the  idea 
of  posthu- 
mous per- 
sonal con- 
sciousness, 
in  a  phy- 
sically 
scientific 
age  like  the 
present. 


widespread  delusion  and  anachronism,  which  may  be  ex- 
pected to  disappear  with  the  gradual  increase  of  human 
culture.  A  generation  led  by  those  who  are  physically 
scientific  in  their  whole  habit  of  reasoning,  is  naturally 
sceptical  about  what  cannot  be  tested  by  visible  experi- 
ment ;  distrustful  of  what  are  called  metaphysical  neces- 
sities ;  and  even  distrustful  of  the  moral  faith  on  which 
their  physical  science  itself,  unconsciously  to  themselves, 
constantly  depends.  If  one  dogmatically  asserts  that  all 
questions  of  fact,  whether  about  things  or  persons,  must 
be  decided  by  physical  tests  only,  and  rejects^  hyper- 
physical  supports  as  abstract  or  fanciful,— the  issue  of 
human  death  is  removed  from  reasonable  investigation, 
along  with  the  removal  of  the  visible  and  tangible  medium 
which  connects  the  conscious  person  with  physical  science. 
Only,  as  I  have  said,  the  same  dogmatic  assumption ^  is 
bound  to  remove,  along  with  this  question,  all  scientific 
questions  together; — for  natural  science  at  last  depends 
upon  faith  that  is  hyper  -  physical.  Unless  we  hyper- 
physically  assume  the  rationality  or  trustworthiness  of 
the  Universal  Power,  nature  must  remain  scientifically 
uninterpretable,  beyond  the  momentary  datum  of  actual 
feeling — which  isolated  datum  per  se  is  unintelligible. 

But  let  us  face  some  of  the  physical  difficulties  which 
beset  faith  in  the  posthumous  conscious  persistence  of  the 
individualised  and  invisible  person.  For  one  thing,  our 
experience  of  the  relation  between  the  visible  organism 
and  the  invisible  conscious  life  and  feeling  is — that 
changes  in  the  one  are  found  in  a  constant  corresponding 
connection  with  changes  in  the  other  :  the  experimental 
inference  would  accordingly  be,  that  total  dissolution  of 
the  body  must,  under  natural  law,  be  followed  by  corre- 
sponding cessation  of  conscious  personality ;  that  the  dis- 
solution of  the  body  must  involve  the  dissolution  of  the 
conscious  personal  life  that  has  been  uniformly  con- 
ditioned by  the  body,  and  made  manifest  to  other  persons 
only  in  and  through  the  body.  Again,  a  separation  of  the 
personal  consciousness  from  the  organised  matter  in  which 
it  is  now  involved  is  by  us   unimaginable.      When  the 


THE    FINAL    VENTURE    OF    THEISTIC    FAITH.       315 

sensuous  imagination  tries  to  realise  self -conscious  life 
after  it  has  ceased  to  be  incarnate,  the  unbodied  life  is 
infinitely  more  mysterious  than  any  supposed  change 
of  locality,  or  of  embodiment,  which  a  man  could  pass 
through.  To  be  transported  in  the  body  into  one  of 
the  neighbouring  planets,  still  more  into  one  of  the 
immeasurably  remote  stellar  systems,  would  be  an  appal- 
ling prospect  for  a  human  being ;  but  after  all  it  would 
not  be  life  out  of  all  embodiment  —  placeless,  if  not 
also  timeless,  life ;  and  solitary  too,  by  dissolution  of  the 
familiar  medium  of  communication  between  persons. 
Timeless  perhaps;  for,  without  perception  of  motion  in 
space,  what  conceivable  measure  of  duration  remains : 
without  the  accustomed  measure  of  duration  which  the 
periodic  movements  of  the  planets  supply,  distinct  ideas 
of  duration  would  disappear,  leaving  the  person  practi- 
cally in  a  placeless  and  timeless  life.  Memory,  too,  if  not 
totally  emptied  of  the  idea  of  time,  is  confronted  by  the 
ultimate  difficulty  of  recollecting  a  personal  history  spread 
over  innumerable  millions  of  years ; — not  to  speak  of  its 
endlessness,  which  raises  an  absolutely  inconceivable  issue. 
Language  too — some  sort  of  sensible  or  pictured  symbol — 
is  now  not  only  the  medium  of  communication  between 
persons,  but  also  an  indispensable  condition  of  solitary 
thought.  Articulate  language  is  an  aggregate  of  visible 
or  audible  signs,  which  needs  continued  relation  of  per- 
sonal consciousness  to  the  sensible  world.  The  dissolution 
of  this  connection  seems  to  withdraw  an  indispensable  in- 
strument of  intelligent  life,  without  which  living  thought 
must  die.  The  only  conscious  life  which  persons  on  earth 
have  any  experience  of,  or  which  is  possible  to  imagine, 
is  embodied  conscious  life.  And  the  presumed  uncon- 
sciousness, or  impersonal  existence,  of  men  before  their  birth 
is  in  physical  analogy  with  an  assumption  of  their  uncon- 
sciousness after  death.  Then  the  modern  wholly  sensuous 
imagination  works  in  another  way.  Exclusive  attention 
to  visible  and  tangible  phenomena  makes  the  invisible 
supposed  realities  of  a  spiritual  personality  look  like 
empty  abstractions.  Hence  the  favourite  assumption, 
that  if  the  conscious  spirit  persists,  after  the  death  of 


316  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

its  visible  organism,  it  must  be  in  correlation  with  an 
organism,  subject  to  conditions  of  place  and  time  like  those 
with  which  we  are  familiar.     And  this  narrow  physical 
conception  of  possibilities  suggests  the  physical  difficulty 
of  an  overcrowded  material  world,  even  with  its  millions  of 
suns  and  their  systems ; — in  which,  in  the  infinite  future, 
with  its  endless  accumulation  of  personal  organisms,  room 
cannot  be   found  for  all  in  planetary  homes.      If    they 
must  accumulate  in  endless  millions   on  every  star  and 
planet,  it  seems  to  the  imagination  that  this  must  in  time 
issue  in  deficient  physical  accommodation. 
The  made-       These  are  illustrations  of  perplexities  of  sensuous  im- 
quacy  of      agination,  in  dealing  with  a  question  foreign  to  the  course 
arguments   of   nature,   so   far   as   nature   comes  within   the   experi- 
for  per-       ence  0f  persons  not  yet  dead.     Sceptical  silence  seems  the 
afterVeath.  appropriate  attitude  of  those  who  suppose  that  faithful- 
ness to  truth  makes  it  necessary  to  accept  only  physical 
criteria,  and  sensuous  imagination,  for  the  determination  of 
all  questions.     They  ask  how  physical  analogies  can  admit 
the  reality  of  a  life  which  no  one  now  living  can  imagine, 
far  less  verify  by  experiment, — a  life  abstracted  from  all 
that  is  physical.     Who  can  rest  upon  premisses  of  ex- 
perience an  inference  absolutely  singular,  regarding  the 
invisible  destiny  of  conscious  persons,  who  thus  far  have 
found  themselves  always  incarnate; — their  self-conscious 
individuality  begun  and  maintained  by  the  incarnation  ? 

Metaphy-         But  if  continuous  personal  life  after  physical  death  is 

sicaiargu-    incapable  of  physical  proof  through  science,  perhaps  it 

^abstract  can  be  shown  to  be  metaphysically  necessary.     Abstract 

possibility,  impossibility  of  the  final  extinction  of  any  conscious  per- 

tne^act)1*11  son  has  been  asserted  as  a  hyper-physical  reason  for  in- 

of  self- '      ferring  the  persistence  of  the  conscious  person,  notwith- 

sur^ivT     standing  the  death  of  his  body.    But  this  abstract  assertion 

after  physi-  can  hardly  be  accepted  as  a  foundation  for  a  conclusion 

cai  death.    about  a  futUre  fact ;  although  it  may  suggest  need  for  so 

unique  a  question  as  the  issue  of  death  being  treated 

differently  from  questions  about  events  that  can  be  seen. 

The  dogma  of  what  is  ambiguously  called  the  "  natural " 

immortality  of  man  is  another  form  of  metaphysical  pos- 


THE    FINAL    VENTURE    OF    THEISTIC    FAITH.       317 

tulate.  This  does  not  mean,  I  suppose,  that  a  conscious 
person  cannot  be  finally  reduced  to  unconsciousness  even 
under  Omnipotent  Universal  Power ;  or  that  the  endless 
existence  of  all  the  individual  persons  now  in  the  universe 
is  as  necessary  in  reason  as  the  endless  existence  of*  God. 
The  ambiguous  term  perhaps  means  that  as  physical 
mortality  is  natural  to  the  human  body,  so  immortality 
is  not  less  natural  to  self-conscious  personality, — that 
the  conscious  ego  cannot  die  except  by  an  occasional 
miracle ;  and  that  if  the  personal  soul  were  naturally  only 
mortal,  it  would  need  a  like  miracle  to  become  immortal 
— which  carries  us  back  to  what  was  said  of  a  supposed 
opposition  between  nature  and  supernature  in  the  ideal 
natural  or  providential  system.  "  Nothing  can  be  plainer," 
we  have  been  told,  "than  that  the  changes,  decays,  and 
dissolutions  which  we  are  continually  seeing  in  natural 
bodies  cannot  possibly  affect  the  active,  simple,  invisible 
substance  of  which  we  are  conscious :  such  a  being  is 
indissoluble  by  the  force  of  external  nature :  that  is  to  say, 
it  is  naturally  immortal."  Bishop  Butler  argues  that  pre- 
sumption of  death  being  the  destruction  of  consciousness 
must  go  upon  the  false  supposition  that  persons  are  com- 
posed of  atoms,  and  so  capable  of  being  dissolved.  Ke- 
f erring  to  the  fact  that  a  human  person  is  now  an  em- 
bodied person,  he  even  argues  that  what  each  man  calls 
himself  is  a  consciousness  not  to  be  identified  in  argument 
with  bodies,  which  are  all  only  aggregates  of  molecules,  so 
that  "  what  we  call  our  bodies  are  no  more  part  of  our- 
selves than  any  other  matter  around  them."  And  indeed, 
abstractly  speaking,  it  is  as  easy  to  suppose  that  we  can 
exist  consciously  without  bodies  as  with  them ;  or  that  we 
may  after  death  animate  other  sorts  of  bodies  as  that  we 
animate  our  present  ones  now :  the  deaths  of  successive 
bodies  may  have  no  natural  tendency  to  annihilate  con- 
tinuous personal  consciousness,  more  than  dissolution  of 
any  material  object  outside  our  bodies  has.  In  this 
abstract  way  it  is  easy  to  suppose  personal  consciousness 
going  on,  uninterrupted  by  any  physical  dissolution — even 
continuing  to  have  all  its  present  sensations  without  the 
intervention  of  what  we  call  "  our  bodies."     Why  not  a 


318  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

perception  of  colours,  without  the  percipient  possessing 
eyes,  and  of  sounds,  without  ears;  for  seeing  and   hear- 
ing are  states  of  consciousness,  which  may  be  supposed 
going  on  independently  of  organised  matter. 
They  fail  to       These  are  speculations.     They  tend  to  show  the  abstract 
sJeptT116     possibility  of  much  that  exceeds  physical  imagination  and 
cism,  sug-    sensuous  experience  ;  but  they  are  too  remote  from  matter 
thedis-by     °^  ^act  to  overcome  the  sceptical  presumption  to  which 
solution       the  visible  dissolution  of  the  body  gives  rise.     Abstract 
reasoning  and  "  easiness  to  suppose  "  leave  us  still  in  front 
of  a  hypothetical  future :    they    excite   dreams,  without 
determining  the  reasonableness  of  faith  in  the  dream. 


of  the 
body. 


The  ethical  Thus  exclusive  physical  science  affords  no  evidence  that 
faith  i°n  a  Person  persists  in  conscious  life  after  his  present  incar- 
personai  nation  has  ended, — indeed  suggests  on  the  whole  that  the 
deathfter  conscious  person  has  ended  too  ;  and  abstract  metaphysical 
speculation  about  personality,  while  it  expands  speculative 
vision,  is  yet  unable  to  sustain  reasonable  belief.  But  are 
we  still  left  in  ignorance,  when  we  turn  from  outward 
nature  and  abstract  metaphysics  to  the  rational  implicates 
of  theistic  faith ;  when  we  intelligently  acknowledge  the 
Omnipotent  Goodness  presupposed  in  the  triplicity  of 
our  primary  data ;  and  after  we  have  reflected  upon 
the  inspired  spiritual  constitution  latent  in  man,  hardly 
evoked  indeed  into  consciousness  in  many,  not  fully 
evoked  in  any  ?  Does  this  inward  "  inspiration  of  the 
Almighty"  reveal  that  the  conditions  under  which  the 
moral  agent  is  maintained  in  his  present  physical  organ- 
isation are  inadequate  to  the  moral  meaning  and  chief 
end  of  man  ?  Would  cessation  of  individual  personal  life, 
after  existence  "  in  the  body,"  for  only  a  few  days,  or 
even  a  hundred  years,  really  put  moral  intelligence  to 
confusion,  and  so  raise  doubt  even  about  the  physical  in- 
terpretability  of  external  nature,  when  personal  experi- 
ence could  be  only  a  hollow  momentary  dream  ?  Is  there 
not  something,  too,  in  the  involuntary  entrance  into  exist- 
ence of  individual  persons — who,  unlike  things  and  their 
passive  metamorphoses,  are  all  responsible  for  their  own 
character,  able  to  resist  as  well  as  to  accept  their  divine 


THE    FINAL    VENTURE    OF    THEISTIC    FAITH.       319 

ideal — is  there  not  something  in  this  that  opposes  itself 
to  the  idea  of  persons  withdrawn  from  responsible  per- 
sonality into  final  unconsciousness,  almost  as  soon  as  their 
personality   begins?     Is   not   the   supposition   of   the  an- . 
nihilation  of  beings   of  this   sort,  before  they  have  had 
time   to    discover   what    and    where    they   are,    an    issue 
that  is  out  of  harmony  with  implicates  of  our  inevitable 
faith  and  hope  in  the  omnipotent  goodness  and  infinite 
mercy  of  the  Power  that  must  be   eternally  making  for 
the  goodness  of  bad  persons  ?     Does  such  an  admission  of 
persons,  for  a  moment,  into  a  dangerous  moral  trial,  on  a 
planet  that  seems  to  have  had  them  as  the  chief  end  of  its 
evolution,  not  look  like  caprice  of  unreason  rather  than 
manifestation   of  omnipotent  goodness  ?      Can    the   suit- 
position  of  the   dissolution  of  conscious   persons  in   the 
death  of  their  bodies  be  reconciled  with  trust  and  hope 
in  the  perfect  goodness  of  the   Universal  Power,  which 
I   have    urged    as    at    once    the    tacit   assumption   in  all 
human    experience,   and    the    last    word    of    true    philo- 
sophy ?      If   positive   answers   to    these   questions    about 
moral     agents    like    men    seem    presumptuous,    at    the 
point   of   view  to   which   the   human   questioner  is   con- 
fined—  remote  intellectually  from   the  infinite   centre  — 
does  not   theistic   faith    at   least   imply    that   confidence 
in  Omnipotent  Goodness  is  the  only  reasonable  principle 
according  to  which  man  can  die  as  well  as  live ;  and  that 
to  die  in  this  moral  venture  in  a  divine   universe  may 
be   ethically  better  for  the  living  than  a   demonstration 
which   would   supersede   education   of  moral   faith  ?      To 
those  whose  lives  are  habitually  directed  in  theistic  trust 
towards  the  realisation  of  their  true  spiritual  ideal,  physi- 
cal  death   is  not  a   leap  in  the  dark,  but  rather  in   the 
divine  light  which   illuminates    all    present    experience. 
In  the  divine  universe  of  theistic   faith  man    can   make 
his  exit  from  the  body,  in  the  assurance  that   ii   is  well; 
yet,  like  the  patriarch,  "  not  knowing  whither  he  is  goi] 
Hope  of  the  continued  existence  of  human  persons,  not- 
withstanding the  disappearance  of  their   1  .edits,   is   not, 
indeed  —  like  faith  in  the  omnipotent   and   omnipresent 
goodness  of  the  Universal  Power — an  indispensable  postu- 


20 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


late  of  all  reliable  intercourse  in  human  experience  with 
the  evolving  universe  of  things  and  persons ;  but  its 
sceptical  disintegration  surely  disturbs  this  fundamental 
faith,  and  so  tends  to  total  pessimist  doubt. 


Is  the 
mixture  of 
Evil  with 
Good  in  the 
universe 
endless  or 
only  transi- 
tory? 


Conjec- 
tures. 


The  enigma  of  moral  evil  leaves  us  in  front  of  a  further 
question,  raised  by  the  very  hope  of  posthumous  life.  Is 
the  existence  of  persons  who  can  make  and  keep  them- 
selves bad  only  a  transitory  episode  in  the  history  of  the 
universe ;  or  must  there  be  for  ever  bad  persons,  increas- 
ing in  number,  and  increasingly  bad  ?  Notwithstanding 
the  ambiguous  appearance  which  the  world  of  sentient  and 
moral  beings  presents  in  this  corner,  and  the  irregular 
adjustments  of  pleasure  and  pain  to  their  good  and  evil 
acts, — so  apt  to  paralyse  faith  and  hope, — are  pain  and 
error  and  vice  in  the  divine  universe  in  the  end  to  dis- 
appear by  perfectly  realised  goodness  in  all  persons,  em- 
bodied or  unbodied,  and  in  all  worlds  ?  Are  all  certain  at 
last  to  become  what  they  ought  to  be ;  certain  in  the  end 
to  realise  individually  the  divine  ideal  of  man ;  or  at  least 
to  be  for  ever  approaching  to  this,  on  the  path  "  which 
shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day "  ? 

The  alternative  answers  to  this  supreme  question  are 
full  of  difficulties  which  seem  to  be  incapable  of  settle- 
ment. That  the  immoral  agency  of  persons — their  per- 
sonal power  to  depart  from  their  moral  ideal — deepened 
and  perhaps  finally  confirmed  by  habit — may  become  an 
absolutely  final  "  election "  to  evil  by  themselves,  which 
even  Omnipotent  Goodness  cannot  overcome — consistently 
with  the  free  personality  of  those  who  persist  in  keeping 
themselves  undivine — is  one  conjecture :  it  involves  the 
mystery  of  the  existence  in  the  divine  universe  of  in- 
numerable persons,  living  endlessly,  increasing  in  number, 
and  all  becoming  worse.  On  the  other  hand,  that  con- 
scious persons,  as  well  as  their  present  bodies,  are 
capable  of  extinction  by  the  Universal  Power ;  that 
only  the  morally  progressive,  who  have  withdrawn  resist- 
ance to  what  is  divine,  finally  retain  conscious  personal 
life,  while  all  who  persist  on  the  downward  grade  are 
finally  reduced  to  unconsciousness — so  that  evil  life  dies 


THE    FINAL    VENTURE    OF    THEISTIC    FAITH.       321 

out,   or   is   continued    only    in   other   equally   transitory 
undivme  persons,  is  a  second  alternative.     Under  a  still 
more  sanguine  conception,  in  mysterious  consistency  with 
free   personality,   all   moral   perversion,   alono-   with    the 
suffering  thus  introduced,  will  in  the  end  disappear,  in 
a  final  rise  into  goodness,— through  God's  love  of  ^oodness 
for  its  own  sake— of  all  beings  who  have  made  them- 
selves bad.     A  universe  that  is  thus  at  last  morally  perfect, 
is  the  universe  which  Omnipotent  love  of  goodness  for  its 
own  sake,  and  consequent  divine  security  for  its  universal 
prevalence,  may  seem  ethically  to  require.     Omnipotent 
love  of  goodness  for  its  own  sake  appears  as  a  security 
that  all  persons  on  this  planet,  and  throughout  the  uni- 
verse, should  be,  or  should  become,  for  ever  good.     Yet  to 
assume  that  this  must  be  the  final  issue,  indeed  to  take 
for  granted  that  it  consists  with  free  agency  in  immoral 
persons,  or  that  it  is  otherwise  possible,  may  be  undue  pre- 
sumption.    Perhaps  man's  present   moral  education   re- r 
quires   that  the  mystery  should  remain  unrelieved,  as  a^ 
teleologically  needed  mystery. 

With  this  cloud  still  resting  on  Man,  our  course  of  An  old  yet 
meditative  thought,  awakened  by  the  divine  problem  of  eVer  new 
the  universe,  and  personal  relations  under  it,  comes  to  an  Pr°blem' 
end.     It  is  the  perennial  question  for  humanity,  which  in 
each   successive  generation  has  attracted  those  who  can 
recognise  the  pathos  of  the  life  in  which  human  beings 
become  involuntarily  incarnated,  and  out  of  which  they 
disappear  at  death.     The  final  meaning  of  human  life  has 
more  than  exhausted  the  speculative  genius  of  Plato  and 
Aquinas,  of  Spinoza  and  Hume,  of  Leibniz  and  Hegel, 
and  transcends   the  sublime   imagination  of  Dante    and 
Milton.      The  theological  conception  of  the  universe,  in- 
cluding the  outcome  of  man  at  last,  must  always  be  fresh 
to  the  reflecting  mind,  although  it  has  engaged  men  from 
the  beginning;  and  the  divine  problem  necessarily  tak 
new  forms  in  advancing  or  fluctuating   thought.     When 
it  is  approached  only  in  the  spirit  of  speculative  curiosity, 
or  with  the  preconception  that  it  must  either  be  perfectly 
soluble  or  else  wholly  unintelligible,  it  seems  t<>  evade 


322  PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 

the  only  settlement  that  is  possible  for  man.  Those  again 
who  insist  npon  the  physical  method  of  investigation  as 
the  only  avenue  to  truth,  logically  conclude  that  the  divine 
or  final  human  question  is  an  idle  question.  But  its 
scientific  insolubility,  I  have  tried  to  show,  need  be  no 
insuperable  bar  to  a  reasonable  settlement,  in  theistic 
trust  and  hope,  as  the  alternative  to  total  uncertainty  and 
despair,  in  case  of  the  absence  of  omnipresent,  omnipotent, 
and  omniscient  Goodness. 


A    RETROSPECT 


A  RETROSPECT. 


I  close  with  a  retrospect.     At  the  outset  of  this  course  Synoptical 
of    meditative  thought  I  appealed  to  our  human   sense  r^8]?66* 
of  the  mystery  of  the  Universe,  into  which  we  have  been  argument 
admitted — strangers  to  it,  and  without  our  leave — and  from  *?*£?. 
which — after  a  moment  of  morally  responsible  life — we  phyof 
disappear  in  Death.      Meditation   upon  the  predicament  S1618?1-" 
in  which  we  thus  involuntarily  find  ourselves  urges  final  ing-point, 
questions  about  the  conscious  ego,  one's  environment,  and 
the   Infinite   Power  that  is  universally  operative   in  the 
change  always  going  on  in  things  and  in  persons.     What 
means  this  infinitesimal  personal  life,  dimly  lighted  amidst 
the  darkness  ?     What,  too,  is  the  function  and  significance 
of  its  material  environment  ?    Above  all,  what  is  the  char- 
acter of  the  Universal  Power,  tacitly  if  not  consciously 
recognised  as  the  finally   uniting  and   reconciling   prin- 
ciple of  the  ever-fluctuating  universe  of  things  and  persons  ? 
Are  things,  and  even  persons,  only   transitory  modifica- 
tions of  One  Non-moral  Substance  or  Power?     Or  must 
the  personality  of  which  I  am  conscious,  in  the  interval 
between  birth  and  death ;  the  world  of  perceptible  things 
which   surrounds   me;    and  the  Power  revealed,  in   and 
through  persons  and  things, — must  these  three  be  philo- 
sophically  distinguished,   as    three    irreducible   data    of 
human  experience  ? 

When  I  tried  the  former  of  these  alternatives  I  found  Neitherthe 
that  even  the  interpretations  of  portions  of  our  surround-  pI^'XT* 
ings — which  in  daily  life  we  all  assume  that  we  possess,  to  sense, 
and  to  which  the  natural  sciences  are  gradually  adding —  T'!;,h?- 
seemed  to  have  lost  their  indispensable  reconciling  pnn-  sensuous 


326 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


intelli- 
gence, can 
determine 
the  true 
answer 
to  this 
question. 


The  homo 
mensura 
method  of 
dealing 
with  the 
final  ques- 
tion about 
the  uni- 
verse of 
realities. 


This  a  via 
media. 


ciple.  I  seemed  to  be  losing  myself  in  a  meaningless 
universe  —  empty  of  persons  moral  or  immoral  —  man 
with  all  his  pretended  sciences,  the  latest  phenomenon 
in  an  inexplicable  procession — the  revelation,  if  it  can  be 
called  revelation,  of  a  Power  concerning  which  I  dare 
not  postulate  enough  to  justify  me  in  concluding  any- 
thing,— in  doing  or  anticipating  anything.  Despair  is 
the  issue  of  the  endeavour  thus  to  comprehend  as  One 
Substance  and  Power  the  reality  into  which  we  enter 
when  we  become  percipient  of  things  and  self-conscious. 

But  is  there  not — I  proceeded  to  ask  myself — is  there 
not  another  method  in  which  the  final  question  about  my 
life  in  the  universe  may  be  dealt  with?  Although  I 
cannot  grasp  the  Whole  as  if  it  were  a  finite  premiss 
in  a  scientific  argument,  may  I  not,  in  some  other  way, 
come  practically  into  reasonable  relation  with  the  Whole  ? 
May  I  noTTTve  in  intercourse  with  it,  under  relations  of 
a  knowledge  that  is  still  human  —  yet  relations  even 
eternally  necessary,  in  man's  limited  and  intermediate  point 
of  view  ?  May  not  the  universal  reality  be  sufficiently 
interpretable,  by  and  for  man,  on  this  homo  mensura 
principle  ?  But  then  it  must  be  the  complete  or  ideal 
Man,  not  man  as  a  sensuous  intelligence  only,  nor  yet 
as  purely  intellectual, — omitting  his  distinguishing  moral 
and  spiritual  experience.  Physical  or  natural  science, 
concerned  with  non-moral  things,  is  an  inadequate  ap- 
plication of  the  homo  mensura.  In  a  deeper  or  more 
real  use  of  that  method,  the  Universal  Power  must  be  pos- 
tulated as  Omnipotent  Goodness.  The  Divina  mensura 
— so  humanised — is  by  implication  the  root  of  human  life 
and  knowledge. 

Man's  final  relation  to  the  universe  of  things  and  per- 
sons, worked  out  on  the  large  homo  mensura  principle, 
does  not  rationalise  the  universal  reality  with  Spinoza 
or  Hegel  in  an  Omniscience  which  eliminates  mystery; 
nor  does  it  leave  man  paralysed  in  total  uncertainty, 
with  David  Hume.  It  postulates  morally  perfect 
Power  at  the  root  of  experience,  with  a  background  of 
inevitable  mystery,  —  a  revelation  this  which  may  be- 
come enough   for   man,  while    it   leaves  something  that 


A    RETROSPECT.  327 

is  by  man  speculatively  unimaginable.  It  recognises  the 
via  media,  intellectually  intermediate  between  Omnisc- 
ience and  Nescience.  Unable  to  see  the  Whole  from  the 
Divine  Centre,  we  are  obliged  to  postulate  Perfect  Good- 
ness of  the  Universal  Power — this  latent  in  all  man's 
intercourse  with  manifested  reality — a  working  postulate 
found  charged  with  meaning,  in  proportion  as  the  persons 
who  think  and  act  upon  it  approach  to  the  ideal  Man. 
How  has  this  method  fared  with  us  on  trial  ? 

In  the  first  place,  our  postulate  was  justified  by  the  Tins  final 
impossibility  of  intelligible  experience,  or  of  moral  conduct,  ™°™J  P°s- 
without  trust  and  hope  in  the  invisible  Power  that  is  indispens- 
omnipresent.  Intercourse  with  things  and  persons  pre-  jjjjig^ 
sumes  moral  confidence  in  the  Power  at  work  throughout 
the  Whole.  To  suppose  practical  indifference  to  goodness 
in  the  Universal  Power,  is  virtually  to  forbid  scientific 
or  moral  intercourse  with  that  Power  as  presented  in  ex- 
perience. We  must  avoid  a  finally  undivine  Universe 
as  we  avoid  a  suspected  man.  In  all  calculated  activity 
we,  at  least  unconsciously,  take  for  granted  the  ethical 
reliability  of  the  mysterious  Power  revealed  in  physi- 
cal and  human  history.  The  absoluteness  of  ethical1 
obligation,  and  the  impossibility  of  interpreting  ourselves 
or  our  surroundings,  if  the  natural  evolution  is  either  a  pro- 
longed accident,  empty  of  moral  meaning,  or  a  revelation 
of  diabolical  purpose — in  either  of  these  ways  putting  us 
to  intellectual  and  moral  confusion — is  what  justifies  the 
theistic  or  moral  conception  as  final.  The  sufficient  reason 
for  its  adoption  is,  that  unless  an  optimist  faith  is  tne 
final  faith,  there  can  be  no  truth  about  anything.  If  the 
life  that  emerges  between  birth  and  death  rises  out  of,  and 
subsides  into,  a  finally  unintelligible  or  morally  untrust- 
worthy universe,  one  can  only  say, — Let  me  escape  from 
conscious  life,  and  thus  practically  from  the  concrete  uni- 
verse, and  return  into  the  unconsciousness  out  of  which  I 
involuntarily  emerged  when  I  was  born.  His  own  anni- 
hilation becomes  the  chief  end  of  the  conscious  ego ; — if 
indeed,  after  paralysis  of  the  fundamental  ethical  postu- 
late, one  can  have  any  end  to  struggle  for,  and  must  not 
passively  subside  into  speechless,  motionless  agnosticism. 


328 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


Surrender 
of  this  final 
moral 
postulate 
paralyses 
human  in- 
telligence, 
and  disin- 
tegrates 
experience. 


The  incar- 
nation of 
God  in 
Nature 
and  Man, 
through 
which  the 
Universal 
Power  is 
virtually 
on  speak- 
ing terms 
with  men. 


In  all  intercourse  with  the  universe  let  me  therefore 
regard  myself  as  a  person  dealing  with  Omnipotent 
Goodness,  therein  implied  and  partially  revealed.  Let 
me  take  this  as  the  constant  postulate  in  all  interpreta- 
tions of  experiences.  But  this  is  to  assume  that  ethical 
faith  is  the  indispensable  rationale  of  human  life — its 
silently  accepted  preliminary — in  its  religious  develop- 
ment the  culmination  of  its  deepest  and  truest  philosophy. 
Moral  faith  is  deeper  than  the  deepest  possible  intellectual 
doubt,  and  is  presupposed  in  all  doubt  that  is  reasonable. 
The  ethical  trust,  needed  for  progressive  interpretation  of 
experience  in  science,  supersedes  the  pessimist  doubt  and 
despair  about  everything,  into  which  monist  speculations, 
strictly  interpreted,  at  last  resolve.  However  sympatheti- 
cally one  tried  to  enter  into  the  agnostic  conception  as 
final,  there  was  always  found  below  it  a  germ  of  moral 
confidence  in  the  character  of  the  Power  that  is  univer- 
sally operative,— as  Power  that  is  neither  indifferent  to 
physical  and  moral  order,  nor  diabolic,  but  perfectly  good, 
and  therefore  making  for  the  goodness  of  all  persons  in  the 
universe.  So  the  Divine  Ideal  is  presumed  to  be — to 
make  and  keep  moral  agents  in  the  state  in  which  they 
ought  to  be ;  and  somehow  to  restore  them  to  goodness,  if 
any  of  them  have  made  themselves  morally  bad. 

The  Universal  Omnipresent  Power  may  be  truly  said 
to  be  on  speaking  terms  with  man,  in  and .  through  a 
cosmical  and  moral  order  which  in  all  its  ramifications  is 
presumed  to  be  interpretable,  because  charged  with  active 
moral  reason ;  not  capricious,  but  absolutely  good  — 
although  man's  inability  to  occupy  the  Divine  Centre 
must  leave  much  that  is  physically  or  morally  inexplic- 
able. That  the  Infinite  Power  should  be  on  speaking 
terms  with  man — through  the  sense  symbolism  of  nature, 
and  the  inward  inspiration  of  the  spirit,  above  all  in  the 
ideal  Man— this  is  surely  not  inconsistent  with  ultimately 
inaccessible  mysteriousness  in  the  God  we  have  con- 
tinually to  do  with.  Eevelation  of  God  intelligible  enough 
to  regulate  man's  life  in  an  otherwise  mysterious  uni- 
verse, seems  the  way  of  answering  final  questions  that 
is   adapted    to    man.      Divine    presence    throughout   the 


A    RETROSPECT.  329 

Whole  is  not  an  uncertain  inference  from  the  mixture  of 
good  and  evil  which  this  planet  presents:  the  primarv 
Divine  datum  is  warranted,  if  it  can  be  shown  to  be  the 
indispensable  condition  of  escape  from  speechless  and 
motionless  doubt  and  despair.  If  the  Universe  can  pos- 
sibly be  in  its  heart  a  lie,  faith  in  the  meaning  of  any 
of  its  events  is  paralysed,  and  nature  becomes  uninter- 
pretable.     True  knowledge,  even  in  part,  is  foreclosed. 

Yet  the  language  of  experience  addresses  us  in  terms  The  Enig- 

that  are  apt  to  give  rise  to  distrust.     The  facts  on  this  Si?  ?f 
ill  •  ,,  Theism, 

planet  seem   to  reveal  at    best  an  uncertain  purpose  of 

mingled  good  and  evil, — unless  we  annihilate  morality, 
by  supposing  good  and  evil  to  be  determined  by  supreme 
arbitrary  will.  Sceptical  pessimism  seems  inevitable,  if 
the  state  of  sentient  beings  and  self-conscious  agents  on 
this  planet  is  taken  empirically,  as  sole  and  sufficient 
evidence  of  the  moral  character  of  the  Universal  Power. 
The  tragedy  that  is  always  going  on  here  seems  to  ask 
us  to  withdraw  the  moral  postulate  which  is  needed  to 
•  inspire  human  life.  How  can  the  sin  and  suffering  we 
find  in  and  around  us  be  contained  in  a  revelation  of 
omnipotent  goodness?  The  universal  condition  of  man 
on  this  planet;  the  irregular  distribution  of  happiness 
and  pain  among  its  sentient  inhabitants ;  the  apparent 
cruelty  of  the  suffering ;  the  existence  of  persons  who 
act  what  ought  not  to  be  acted,  make  the  whole — to  an 
educated  sense  of  fairness — more  like  moral  chaos  than 
the  expected  moral  cosmos.  With  this  appalling  spectacle, 
daily  presented,  can  we  retain  hold  of  the  indispensable 
presupposition  of  human  experience?  Can  the  suspicious 
facts  be  reconciled  with  the  ethical  postulate,  and  so  a 
total  sceptical  breakdown  which  dissolves  experience  be 
avoided  ? 

In   this  dilemma   between   faith   in   our   universe   and  Consider* 
final   doubt,    considerations   were    suggested    to    mitigate  I',','^.!^"1 
the  pressure  of  the  strange  facts  which  threaten  to  sub-  the] 
vert  the  needed  moral  trust.     Thus,  for  all  that  we  can  SSJ^JJ" 
show  to  the  contrary,  it  may  he  a  sign  of  perfect  goo 
ness  that  there  should  be   in    existence,  on  educational  '■' 


330 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THEISM. 


improve- 
ment. 


amorally     trial,  morally  responsible   persons,   who   have   power  to 
worth  -        make  and  keep  themselves  bad — notwithstanding  the  risks 
universe,      of  this  divine  experiment — rather  than  that  there  should 
and  signs     not  De  persons  on  moral  trial  at  all,  but  instead  a  wholly 
untrust-      non-moral,  or  physically  necessitated,  universe.     If  one 
worthiness,  takes  account  of  fallible  moral  agents  on  probation,  as  at 
least  the  humanly  related  purpose  which  the  Whole  is 
making  for,  at  the  only  human  point  of  view,  it  may  well 
be  that  the  universe  emptied  of  persons — even  such  per- 
sons as  men  have  made  themselves — would  realise  a  less 
divine  ideal  to  that  under  which  sin  and  suffering  appear. 
Signs  of  Moreover,  one  may  suggest  that  the  enigma  presented 

F^g^sive  on  this  planet  is  relieved  by  the  signs  of  human  progress 
also  presented,  when  its  history  is  interpreted  as  divinely 
conducted  education  of  all  who  will  permit  themselves  to 
be  divinely  educated.  Progressive  improvement  on  the 
whole,  but  which  often  seems  to  convert  progress  into 
regress — rather  than  original  and  endless  moral  perfec- 
tion— may  be  the  only  economy  adapted  to  a  divine  world 
that  includes  persons  on  trial. 

Still  more  when  there  is  reasonable  room  for  a  rein- 
forcement of  the  progressive  movement  by  what  to  us 
may  seem  unique  action  of  the  Universal  Power,  "  at 
sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners,"  according  to  a 
rational  order  more  comprehensive  than  that  which  men 
recognise  in  their  physical  experience,  and  which  in  this 
sense  may  be  called  miraculous — determined  by  its  rela- 
tions to  persons  who  have  made  themselves  bad,  in  reject- 
tuiate  of S"  ing  tne  divine  ideal ;  so  that  their  dormant  faith  and  hope 
has  to  be  vivified  and  enlightened,  in  order  to  their  moral 
recovery  —  all  through  divine  incarnation  in  the  Ideal 
Man,  the  consummation  of  divine  incarnation  in  External 
Nature. 
The  condi-  Furthermore,  sceptical  disintegration  of  final  faith  and 
hnmaiflife  k°Pe  *n  tne  Universal  Power  may  be  arrested,  by  the  con- 
on  earth  sideration  that  the  present  tragedy  of  sin  and  suffering  on 
seem  to  this  planet  is  not  extended  enough  in  time  and  place 
thetheistic  to  explain  its  final  meaning  and  universal  issues.  The 
Fo?itere2  curtain  falls  at  tlie  beginning  of  the  first  act.  If  men 
tificationor  are  living  in  a   morally  trustworthy  universe,  in   filial 


A  larger 
revelation 
than  the 
merely 
physical 
one,  adapt- 
ed to  make 
the  bad 
good,  may 
be  implied 
in  the 


physical 
experience 


A    RETROSPECT.  331 

confidence  that  the  issues  need  not  in  the  end  put  them  to  explana- 
intellectual  and  moral  confusion,  this  would  seem  to  imply  t1""- 
for  them  a  longer  and  larger  life  than  that  on  this  earth— 
a  life  in  which  perfection  will  be  found  by  the  tried  agents 
to  underlie  the  apparent  indifference,  caprice,  or  cruelty 
of  the  secular  drama.  For  physical  death  need  not  end 
the  conscious  life  of  persons  who  die  physically;  and  tin- 
primary  moral  postulate  of  experience  may  even  imply  a 
reasonable  faith  and  hope  that  this  is  not  so,  in  a  divinely 
constituted  universe.  The  moral  chaos  now  on  this 
planet,  so  apt  to  be  disintegrative  of  moral  trust  in  the 
Universal  Power,  and  therefore  in  all  human  experience, 
may  be  relieved  through  a  now  inconceivable  after-life 
of  the  moral  agents,  after  the  curtain  falls  in  death. 

These  considerations,  afforded  by  a  larger  philosophy  Aida  to 
than  the  science  which  is  only  physical  can  offer,  tend  to  j'^1'* 
sustain  the  moral  trust  and  hope  in  the  Universal  Power 
which  is  at  the  root  of  experience — without  which  human 
life  is  hollow  illusion,  —  no  divine  voice  heard  in  the 
drama  of  Nature,  no  spiritual  inspirations  in  and  through 
Man, — the  whole  uninterpretable — human  nature,  in  all 
its  faculties  and  inevitable  postulates,  a  vain  illusion.  It 
is  the  inevitable  sceptical  and  pessimist  alternative  in  this 
dilemma  that  makes  theistic  optimism,  with  its  rational 
consequences,  the  highest  human  philosophy ;  so  that  we 
are  obliged  in  reason  to  rest  in  final  faith  and  hope,  un- 
less its  incoherence  can  be  demonstrated,  dissolving  ex- 
perience and  its  divine  postulate,  along  with  science  and 
goodness,  in  a  common  ruin.  The  extinction  of  theistic 
faith  is  the  extinction  of  reason  in  man. 


INDEX. 


iEschylus,  259. 

Agnosticism  —  and  Materialism,  45 
— stated  by  Professor  Huxley, 
107  ff. — its  legitimacy  as  a  nega- 
tive presupposition,  108 — reverses 
the  teaching  of  Bacon,  Descartes, 
and  Locke,  110  ff. — and  Kant, 
111,  112— thought  out  by  Hume, 
112 — and  moral  experience,  119 
—  and  faith,  120,  124  ff.  —  and 
science,  120 — Christian,  161. 

Ahriman,  259. 

Anaxagoras,  45. 

Anaximander,  43. 

Anselm,  223. 

Anthropocentric  conception  of  the 
universe  in  Hellenic  and  Hebrew- 
thought,  45  ff. 

Aquinas,  46,  226,  321. 

Aristotle,  32,  46,  177,  226,  286. 

Asceticism,  46. 

Astronomy  and  Theology,  49  ff. 

Atheism — and  the  universe,  13  ff. — 
and  faith  in  a  future  life,  308  ff. 

Augustine,  64,  161,  223,  252. 

Authority,  236,  241. 

Automaton  theory  of  man,  145  ff. 


15 


Bacon,  37— and  final  causes,  4/   ff. , 
85 — and    Agnosticism,    110    ff. , 


162,  L63,  164-169,  177,  190,  195, 
225,  226,  238,  284,  285. 

Bayle,  89. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  81  —  on  know- 
ledge of  God,  148  ff,  164,  223, 
224. 

Biology  and  Theology,  51  ff. 

Boyle,  119. 

Bruno,  81. 

Buddhism,  103. 

Butler,  Bishop,  8,  15,  20,  254,  317. 


Caligula,  262. 

Calvinism  and  Pantheism,  SO. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  Hume,  117. 

Cartesianism,  64. 

Catholicism,  160. 

Causation,  54  ff.— and  Immaterial- 
ism,  73  ff.— means  more  than  con- 
stant sequence,  129  ff. — natural 
and  divine,  131  ff. — natural  and 
moral,  14-1  ff.  — and  conscience. 
151  ff.,  248 — ultimately  a  theifi 
tic  conception,  188 — the  supreme 
intellectual  postulate  of  change, 
188  ff — presupposed  in  natural 
science,  L89  -natural  causation 
is  God  acting,  190  ff.,  298 
inadequately  realised  in  physical 
experience,  191  ff.  —  more  fully 
in  human  or  moral  personality, 
1!>2    IV.  —  and    universal    natural 


334 


INDEX. 


adaptation,  202  ff.,  214  ff.—  indi- 
vidual personal  agency  may  be 
undivine  or  sinful,  262  ff! — and 
miracles,   294. 

Chalmers,  Thomas,  on  creation,  127 
ff. 

Christianity — and  Philosophy,  20 — 
46,  64,  83— and  Natural  Theo- 
logy, 157  ff. — and  Agnosticism, 
161-228— and  Hegelianism,  226, 
241  ff. — and  miracle,  291 — may 
be  natural  and  yet  divine,  303. 

Chrysostom,  161. 

Cicero,  46,  56,  202. 

Clarke,  Samuel,  32,  89,  223. 

Clement,  83. 

Coleridge,  183,  186. 

Comte,  142,  177,  288,  289,  290. 

Conduct  and  speculation,  21. 

Conscience — and  freedom,  151 — and 
causality,  248. 

Consciousness — the  light  of  exist- 
ence, 65  ff.,  141  ff. — man's  true 
self,  68 — and  organism,  140. 

Copernicus,  49,  51. 

Cosmological  proof  of  Theism  an- 
alysed, 188  ff. 

Creation,  125,  127  ff. — discussed  by 
Hume,  126. 

Cudworth,  259. 


Design  in  nature,  202  ff. — its  rela- 
tion to  man  and  its  superhuman 
relations,  204  ff. 

Devil,  260. 

Dionysius,  pseudo-,  161. 

'  Divina  Commedia,'  46. 

Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  306. 

Duality  of  the  finite  universe,  30 — 
incompleteness  of  this  view,  31. 

Du  Bois  Raymond,  181. 

Duration  commingles  finitude  and 
infinitude,  230,  239,  250. 


E 


Energy,  conservation  of,  53  ff. 

Eternal  mind,  31  ff.,  126  ff.— diffi- 
culties of  the  idea,  32  ff. — crea- 
tion, 204. 

Euclid,  163,  182. 

Evil,  and  the  final  problem,  11. 

Evolution  —  and  sudden  Creation, 
210— and  Design,  218  ff.— and 
Progress,   281. 

Experience,  theistic  faith  presup- 
posed in  all,  jKissim. 

Explanation,  limits  of  scientific, 
130  ff. 


Dante,  321. 

Death — and  the  final  problem,  11 — 
306  ff.— uniqueness  of  the  event, 
310 — scientific  prevision  and  pre- 
vision of  our  own  self-conscious 
life  after  physical  death,  312 — 
difficulties,  314  —  and  the  final 
moral  postulate,  318  ff. 

Deism — and  the  idea  of  God  as  sub- 
stance, 34 — and  Pantheism,  82  ff. 

Democritus,  43,  45,  70. 

Descartes,  64,  70,  79,  80  —  and 
Agnosticism,  110,  111-169 — and 
the  trustworthiness  of  our  facul- 
ties, 175,  223. 


Faith — and  Agnosticism,  120,  124 
ff.  —  cosmic  and  moral,  145 — 
cosmic  and  theistic,  155  ff. — and 
reason,  162  ff.— final,  232  ff.— 
and  science,  233 — implied  finally 
in  all  human  knowledge  of  the 
universe,  235  ff,  257 — and  its 
enigma,  243 — and  moral  evil,  258 
ff.,  265 — and  optimism,  275 — and 
prevision  or  expectation,  310. 

Fichte,  79. 

Freedom  and  Personality,  266  ff., 
269  ff. 


G 


Gifford  Lectures,  5  ff.,  17,  22,  226. 


INDEX. 


335 


Gifford,  Lord,  5,  16,  17,  20,  24,  85 

ff. — on  substance,  86  ff. 
Goethe — on  Hegel's   '  Philosophy  of 

Religion,'  20  —  on  Spinoza,  90 — 

236. 
Gregory  of  Nazianzen,  161. 


H 


Hartmann,  81. 

Hegel,  26,  165,  169,  177,  222,  224, 
226,  240,  321,  326. 

Hegelianism,  81. 

Heraclitus,  43,  189. 

Hiero,  154,  156. 

Hipparchus,  142. 

Homer,  50. 

Homo  Mensura,  its  narrow  and  its 
wide  meaning,  326. 

Hume — his  difficulty  about  natural 
theology,  9  ff. — on  reason  and 
revelation,  20  —  his  twofold  in- 
vestigation of  religion,  21 — his 
criticism  of  the  idea  of  self,  27- 
37 — and  Spinoza,  89  —  quoted  by 
Professor  Huxley,  108,  111— and 
Agnosticism,  112  ff. — on  faith 
and  knowledge,  114  ff. — on  cus- 
tom, 114 — on  belief,  115  ff. — and 
Herbert  Spencer,  117 — his  char-, 
acter  and  religious  belief,  118 — 
his  idea  of  experience,  119 — his 
question  about  creation,  126  ff. — 
134,  154,  168,  197,  205,  206,  211, 
256,  257,  321,  326— and  miracles, 
295. 

Huxley,  Professor — his  Agnosticism, 
107  ff. — on  natural  changes  and 
moral  agency,  145  ff.,  148,  150, 
173. 


I 


Idealism,  15,  160. 

Immortality,  12  ff.— and  Natural- 
ism, 313  ff. — and  Metaphysics, 
316  ff. — and  Moral  Reason,  318 
ff. 


Infinite  Quantity — its  significance 
for  human  knowledge  and  faith, 
167  ff.,  212,  219  ff— and  Hegel- 
ianism, 240  ff. 

Infinite  reality — the  concern  of  phil- 
osophy and  religion,  as  distinct 
from  natural  science,  8  ff.—  con- 
ceived  as  substance,  34  —  in  rela- 
tion to  space,  time,  Bubstance, 
and  causality,  92  if. — how  a  n- 
nected  with  human  experience, 
158    II. — and  succession,    163. 


Jesus,  23S,  291. 
Job,  259. 


Kant,  26  —  quoted  by  Professor 
Huxley,  108,  111 — and  Agnos- 
ticism, 111,  112-169,  173,174, 
188,  206,  223,  224. 

Kepler,  142. 


Leibniz,   100,  224,    262,    273,   274, 
303,  321. 

Lessing,  90. 

Locke,  John,  20 — his  recognition  of 
the  three  primary  Data,  26  If. — 
his  assertion  of  the  self-evidence 
of  the  Ego,  26  ff.,  28,  65—  his 
account  of  our  perception  of  out- 
ward  things,  28  bia  r<  cognition 
of  the  dependence  of  the  indi- 
vidual Ego  upon  '  !od,  •'!  1  hie 
count  of  the  conception  of  Eternal 
Mind,  31  tf.  -his  mathematically 
certain  proof  of  God's  existence, 
33  ff.,  69,  70,  s!»  on  substance, 
!!■_'  and  Agnosticism,  111  1 50, 
L69,  234,  235. 

Lotze       <>ii    Materialism,   1 36-  1 69, 
230. 

Love,  infinite,  of  <  ;<»1  implied  in  the 


336 


INDEX. 


finally  perfect  moral  trustworthi- 
ness of  the  universe  of  reality,  184. 
Lucretius,  43,  46,  168. 


More,  Sir  Thomas,  310. 
Mystery  —  envelopes   man,    8 — and 
adoration,  160  ff. 


M 


N 


Mackenzie,  Henry,  118. 

Malebranche,  89. 

Man  —  insignificant  under  the  ma- 
terialistic conception,  47  ff. ,  58  ff. 
— symbolic  of  the  supernatural 
ideal  man,  139  ff.  —  in  natural 
adaptation  to  the  universe,  204  ff. 

Materialism  —  ancient,  43,  64 — 
modern,  44  ff. — its  anticipations, 
52 — and  teleology,  58  ff. — and 
morality,  59  ff.,  143  ff.  —  and 
reason,  60,  66  ff.,  141  —  the 
primitive  conception,  64-78  — 
its  postulates  and  incoherence, 
136,  142. 

Matter— difficulties,  29  ff.,  68  ff.— 
indestructibility  of,  53  ff. — deified 
in  Materialism,  59 — primary  and 
secondary  properties  of,  70  ff  — 
dependent  on  conscious  life  for  its 
realisation,  71  ff. — and  evil,  261. 

Method  of  Natural  Theology,  16  ff. 

Milton,  47,  321. 

Miracle,  291  ff. — and  Christianity, 
291  —  and  Causality,  294  —  and 
Philosophy,   294. 

Mirza,  Vision  of,  12. 

Montaigne,  112. 

Moral  evil,  240 — the  supreme  en- 
igma of  Theism,  253  ff.,  329— 
various  attempts  at  its  explana- 
tion, 259  ff. — and  individual  re- 
sponsibility for  it,  267,  278 — its 
ultimate  issues,  320  ff. 

Moral  reason — presupposes  the  final 
moral  trustworthiness  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  so  makes  real  experi- 
ence possible,  171  ff.,  192,  209, 
214  ff.,  247  ff.— its  relation  to 
Theism,  247  ff. — and  immortality, 
318  ff. 

Moral  relations  and  persons,  251. 


Natural  and  supernatural,  19  ff., 
35  ff.,  123,  131  ff.,  139  ff. 

Natural  Science — only  a  partial  and 
provisional  interpretation  of  the 
universe,  171  ff.,  194  —  cannot 
conflict  with  theistic  faith,  on 
which  by  implication  it  depends, 
196,   249  ff. 

Natural  Theology,  5  ff.,  16  ff.,  76  ff., 
166. 

Naturalism,  200  ff. — and  Immortal- 
ity, 313  ff. 

Nature  and  morality,  34,  141,  143. 

Neo-platonists,  81. 

Nero,  262. 

Newton,  51,  142,  150. 

Novalis,  90. 

Novum  Organum,  185. 


O 


Ontological    evolution    of    Theism, 

221    ff. — as  in   Hegel's  dialectic, 

226  ff. 
Optimism,  262  ff.— and  Theism,  264 

— and    theistic    faith,    275 — and 

progress,  281. 
Origen,  83,  161. 
Ormuzd,  259. 


Pain — a  problem  for  Theism,  257 — 
an  occasion  of  spiritual  education, 
286. 

Paley,  56,  109,  202,  218. 

Pantheism — the  only  absolute  mon- 
ism, 78,  79  ff. — its  historical  re- 
presentatives, 80,  81 — the  name 
and  its  ambiguity,  81,  82 — Deism 
and  Theism,   82 — and  moral  ex- 


INDEX. 


337 


perience,  101 — its  inconsistency 
with  moral  experience,  102. 

Parmenides,  81,  223. 

Pascal,  14,  67,  114,  140,  169. 

Perception — Locke's  account  of,  28 
— difficulties  of  this  account,  29  ff. 

Personal  existence  —  regarded  by 
Locke  as  self-evident,  26 — disin- 
tegrated by  Hume,  27 — enigmas 
of,  28 — its  significance  for  Theism, 
170,  192  ff.,  200,  209  ff.,  213, 
279  —  its  relation  to  physical 
causation,  171 — and  to  Pan- 
theism, 229  —  and  consequent 
possibility  of  moral  evil,  267  ff., 
269  ff. — consistent  with  optimism, 
278  —  the  final  reality,  at  the 
human  point  of  view,  278 — and 
miracle,  301 — its  identity,  306 — 
and  immortality,  308. 

Personality  —  as  applied  to  the 
morally  trusted  Universal  Power, 
250  ff. — applicable  to  existence  as 
finally  conceived  by  man  under 
moral  relations,  251. 

Pessimism  the  logical  alternative  to 
Theistic  Optimism,  277. 

Plato,  13, 46, 165, 169, 222,  306,321. 

Pliny,  4. 

Plotinus,  81,  102,  103,  223. 

Pre-Socratic  Philosophy,  material- 
istic, 43. 

Problem  of  existence,  in  its  various 
forms,  5  ff. 

Progress,  277  ff — faith  in,  virtually 
theistic,  281  ff. — through  appar- 
ent Regress,  and  as  implied  in 
and  modified  by  agency  of  per- 
sons, 286 — and  pain,  286 — intel- 
lectual, 287 — theistic  faith  the 
fundamental  factor  in,   288. 

Protestantism,  83,  160. 

Ptolemaic  astronomy,  46. 


R 


Reality — of  material  things,  279 — 
of  personal  existence,  human  and 


divine,  279 — and  the  meaning  of 
reality,  279. 

Reason — and  revelation,  18  ff. — and 
faith,  162  ff. — and  reasoning, 
163. 

Religion — validity  of,  22 — and  mor- 
ality, 152. 

Religious  or  theistic  faith,  not  un- 
reasonable, although  at  last  logic- 
ally undemonstrable,  because  pre- 
supposed in  trustworthy  experi- 
ence, 216  ff,  237  ff. 

Responsibility,  moral,  144  ff. 

Revelation,  at  once  natural  and 
supernatural,  17  ff 


Salisbury,  Lord,  208. 

Scepticism — and  Philosophy,  105  ff. 
— cannot  be  absolute,  113,  114. 

Schelling,  81,  102,  103. 

Schleiermacher,  90. 

Schopenhauer,  8,  13,  81,  168. 

Science  —  modern,  44  —  and  tele- 
ology, 47  ff.  —  physical,  needs 
itself  to  be  explained,   130  ff. 

Scotus  Erigena,  81,  84. 

Shakespeare,  310. 

Simonides,  4,  154. 

'Siris,'  81. 

Socrates,  45,  64,  81,  202,  286. 

Space  and  infinity,  94  ff. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  81,  117,  168,  177 
ff.,  226. 

Spinoza,  25 — on  final  causes,  47  ff. , 
99  ff,  80,  81,  85,  88— and  Hume, 
89 — and  his  interpreters,  89  ff.— 
regards  individual  things  as  illu- 
sions, 91 — on  natura  naturata, 
91  ff— on  infinite  reality,  92  11. 
— on  time  and  change,  97  ff. — 
on  quantity,  98  ff. — his  theology, 
101  ff,  105,  117,  132,  154,  197, 
206,  228,  233,  239,  301,  321, 
326. 

Spiritual  agency  expressed  in  natural 
law  or  order,  197  ff,  209  ff. 


338 


INDEX. 


Stirling,  Dr  Hutchison,  226. 
Stoics,  81. 
Superconscious,  159  ff. 


Tarquin,  262,  273. 

Taylor,  Isaac,  306. 

'Ideological  interpretation  of  the 
universe  analysed,  202  ff. 

Teleology — in  Hebrew  and  Hellenic 
thought,  45  ff.  —  criticised  by 
Bacon,  47  ff.  — and  Spinoza,  47 
ff,  99  ff. — in  modern  speculation, 
48,  55  ff. — justification  of  the 
idea,  124 — and  constant  creation, 
125 — and  causation,  133  ff. 

Tennyson,  306. 

Thales,  43,  45. 

Theism — in  relation  to  Pantheism 
and  Deism,  82  ff.  —  fallacious 
theistic  argument,  109  ff. — rela- 
tion to  Atheism  and  Pantheism, 
169  — Kant's,  173  — latent  in 
Descartes'  recognition  of  the 
trustworthiness  of  our  faculties, 
175  ff. — latent  in  Mr  Spencer's 
Agnosticism,  180  —  presupposed 
in  reasonable  human  life,  because 
total  scepticism  its  logical  alter- 
native, 185,  327  ff.— the  basis  of 
scientific  proof,  186  ff.,  221  — 
finally  involved  in  causality,  188, 
298 — cannot  conflict  with  natural 
science,  which  rests  on  it,  196  ff. , 
249  ff.— and  Naturalism,  200  ff, 
288  ff. — its  relation  to  the  inevi- 
table human  limits  of  physical 
science,  252,  253  —  and  moral 
evil,    258    ff,    265,     329  —  and 


optimism,  264 — and  human  pro- 
gress, 281  ff. 

Things  and  Persons  contrasted,  170, 
266. 

Time  and  timeless  infinity,  96  ff. 

Time-relations  and  endlessness,  230. 

Toland,  John,  81. 

Tucker,  Dean,  15. 


U 


Universal  Nescience,  the  alternative 
to  Theistic  Faith,  174,  176,  327. 

Universal  Power,  The,  virtually  on 
speaking  terms  with  men,  in  and 
through  the  universal  Order  and 
Adaptation,  328. 

Universe,  The  —  insane  without 
divine  order,  15 — its  orderliness 
the  basis  of  human  life,  135 
— final  moral  trustworthiness  of, 
or  theistic  faith  in,  172,  175-177, 
184 — this  moral  trust  not  proved 
to  be  inconsistent  with  a  mixture 
of  present  evil,  270-272,  277-281. 


Voltaire,  89. 


W 


Weismann,  208,  209. 
Wordsworth,  280,  306. 


Zoroaster,  259. 


PRINTED    BY    WILLIAM    BLACKWOOD    AND   SONS, 


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